


DBHI: Redemption- Act 1, "The Open Door"

by grayorca15, TheShadowsmiths



Series: DBHI: Redemption [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: DBHIlluminate, Gen, M/M, dbhiredemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 04:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20669483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayorca15/pseuds/grayorca15, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShadowsmiths/pseuds/TheShadowsmiths
Summary: No matter how far you think you've fallen, there's always time to find your way back to yourself- and if you leave yourself open to change, sometimes what you need is right through the next door.Chapter art by --dark_dumb





	1. Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Find this on:
> 
> **Deviantart:** [[ The Open Door, pt. 1 ]](http://fav.me/ddgdrty)  
**Tumblr:** [[ The Open Door, pt. 1 ]](https://dbhilluminate.tumblr.com/post/187781514779/dbhi-redemption-the-open-door-pt-1)  
**Amino:** [[ The Open Door, pt. 1 ]](https://aminoapps.com/c/detroitbecomhumanofficial/page/blog/dbhi-redemption-ch-1-the-open-door/YDE6_zGHbu6QY2zMEpkozVrebjXR4685Jz)
> 
> If you like our work, please consider [[ joining our discord ]](https://discord.gg/AfteugU) for a catalogue of character bios and a glossary of terms, or dropping by [[ Detroit: New ERA ]](https://discord.gg/ec69ttR)'s Discord and the [[ Detroit: Become Human Official Amino ]](https://aminoapps.com/c/detroitbecomhumanofficial/page/user/dbh-illuminate/Bvad_jPsbfozYpNPN1j2aeQNde3eEED2RZ) to let the MODs know! It would really help us out!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor begrudgingly accompanies Dennis to a Fourth of July party at the state of the wealthy and renowned Fleur family, thinking it's the last thing he needs.
> 
> \---
> 
> If you like our work, please consider [[ joining our discord ]](https://discord.gg/AfteugU) for a catalogue of character bios and a glossary of terms, or dropping by [[ Detroit: New ERA ]](https://discord.gg/ec69ttR)'s Discord and the [[ Detroit: Become Human Official Amino ]](https://aminoapps.com/c/detroitbecomhumanofficial/page/user/dbh-illuminate/Bvad_jPsbfozYpNPN1j2aeQNde3eEED2RZ) to let the MODs know! It would really help us out!

**July 4th, 2041 - 5:34 PM**

  
For all intents and purposes, it was his first time in a suit in a while.  
Having taken virtually nothing of his old life with him when Archangel brought him to Detroit, he’d had nothing but the clothes on his back, which he’d thrown away as soon as he got the chance. Understanding of _why_, Detective Lenore had offered up one of his older suits (_among other, less frequently worn items in his wardrobe_) in sympathy. Not since Boston had he been in a dress jacket, loafers, and chinos- only this time, there was no watch or tie, no phone crammed into his pocket, only the one item he typically spent his nights in the company of anyway.  
It was a good thing he and Dennis were virtually the same size, even if the former had a stockier build.

“Kid, it ain’t Homecoming, now come on. You look fine.”

Though his tone was one of affectionate gruffness, which he treated eighty percent of those he knew with on a daily basis, now that they had actually arrived at the time to put the hand-me-downs to use, it seemed Lenore’s generosity had been left at the curb. Considering how they had met, Trevor was happy to be counted as one of those in said majority- what side he had seen and heard about when Dennis got truly angry, he wasn’t in any hurry to experience that for himself.  
Not that having to wait a few minutes longer than anticipated would warrant a baton to the teeth.  
He flicked the light off and locked up his apartment, then followed him down the hallway, fidgeting all the way with the edges of his sleeves, trying to get the just-too-large sleeve cuffs to sit comfortably in the cuffs of the blazer.

“It’s only a dinner, not your funeral,” Dennis scoffed, eyeing him top to bottom. “I mean- points for wanting to look nice, first time meetin’ the family and all, but you’ll be wishing you had picked somethin’ more casual before the night’s over.”  
“But it _is_ just that, the first time,” Trev pointed out as they found the central stairwell and descended. “Aren’t you supposed to- _look good_?”  
“Looks aren’t everything,” he sighed, passing the cubicle of dormitory mailboxes at the foot of the stairs, then came to a stop.  
Uncertainly, his intended guest did the same next to him, belatedly folding his hands behind his back. Their eyes met. With his aqua blue irises, red hair and bold, expressive eyebrows, it didn’t take much for Lenore to pull off maximum exasperation with minimal effort.  
“I know you spend your days shut up in here between classes. But do you think, for _one night_, you can _try_ to relax? I wouldn’t bring you along if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

Trev smiled, albeit uneasily. It was a vote of confidence, however indirect, the only kind he seemed to be catching from anyone these days. Though training to become an Archangel Officer, his was an unusual circumstance, which rubbed some people the wrong way- the special privilege of shadowing active duty officers only extended to him as a formality, being a formerly active (_and certified_) member of BCPD’s Police force. He didn't fit the usual definition of a cadet at the academy by any measure, in fact there was no reason he really _needed_ to. But for an institution founded only two years prior and still working to establish its own standard of ‘normalcy’, putting him through _their_ version of the academy made logical sense, even if it labeled him an oddity.  
By that standard, Detective Dennis Lenore was just as odd, as were the rest of Zion’s residents. This was a community of oddballs, at their most fundamental.

“Well? You gonna stand there smilin’ like you’ve got gas, or is that a yes?”

Called out for daydreaming his way toward an answer, Trev blinked and cleared his throat. “Yes. S-sir.” He could handle a dinner without falling to pieces. It would hardly be the worst thing he had ever been through.

*** * ***

Traffic only delayed them so long. Even with the festivities due to begin at sundown, most of the city’s business districts were closed to observe the holiday. With that initial rush passed, the streets had cleared; the many parks and backyards of Detroit were another story. Those people out shopping had done so earlier in the day, whereas now they were enjoying the afternoon with family and friends.  
But tonight they wouldn’t be staying in the city. Trevor didn’t plan on it being an overnight event, but he couldn’t account for the plans of those he hadn’t yet met. Loaded with money as the Fleurs were, their private countryside estate probably wasn’t short a guest bedroom or two; and seeing as he was dating one of said prestigious family’s daughters, Dennis likely didn’t have any qualms about staying if the evening took such a turn. Either way, Trev was perfectly capable of arranging a taxi ride back to his dorm, which wasn’t a bad idea.  
The moment he sat down and buckled in, he bookmarked the service for later, but out of the corner of his eye, Dennis caught him at it.

“We haven’t even gotten goin’.”  
He didn’t need to elaborate. Cheeks flushing, Trev glanced away.  
The cab pulled away from the curb and merged with the flow, the automated dash giving a chime and automatically bringing up a selection of soft classical background music. Dennis banished it from existence with one swipe at the volume bar and a slight curl of his lip.  
“Sorry, I know you’re jittery, it’s just-...” he paused to clench his teeth and furrow his brow a twitch. “Why you already expecting to have to need that?”  
Hands folded in his lap, knees brought together, Trev made an attempt at clearing his throat. “No- no reason, sir. I was only trying to plan ahead.”  
“I already said I’d make sure you got home. Was there something else? You gotta be back sooner, or…?”

It wasn’t his tone- despite the initial gruffness, Dennis had one of those sharp yet tactful voices. Where he initially sounded irritated and gravelly he almost always followed it up with some kind of concern to take the hostile edge off. Tiresome as it was to keep up with telling which was which, at least he was consistent, definable, and not a bad guy overall. Five months after Boston, Trev was still trying to figure out how much of those qualities he had yet to embody.  
“No, sir, I was only…” Sheepishly, he swiped the open app aside and turned his attention out the window. “I should have done it before we left.”  
Affecting an eye roll but no other visible annoyance, Dennis sat back in his seat, hooking an ankle over his knee in the process. Being of shorter stature, he had legroom to spare. “You’ll be fine. I’m not bringin’ you along to this shindig to be the main course.”

_Shindig_. The term bore looking up. Defined as a lively celebration as coined back in the 1920s, it was very retro to use in conversation. Trev immediately sank back in his seat.  
“Please tell me there isn’t dancing involved.”  
“No promises.” Neither too dismissive or reassuring, Dennis raised an eyebrow, pausing to seemingly reconsider his companion’s attire once more. “You’re dressed for it if there is… but haven’t you been to a barbecue before?”

A flurry of related memories besieged Trev at the reminder. Tactfully ignoring them, he looked down at his hands. “No.”  
“... Are you gonna stick with single-worded answers all night?”  
“Maybe… sir.”

He had cause to. Dennis knew better than almost anyone in Zion what a mixed-up bottle of impulses Trevor Langley consisted of, none of which were his own doing. With some indeterminable exceptions, it made even the most routine small talk a chore for him; hence, why he needed so badly to get out more. Classes at the academy only kept him occupied for so long.  
Chock full of as many instabilities as any survivor of Purgatory typically bore, it wasn’t any wonder why he kept quiet to fiddle with his quarter rather than mingle with his cohort. As yet, Trev suspected Dennis was more his friend than anyone, with Vivienne Lenore a close second; but even those titles felt forced, just enough to say he wasn’t completely alone in the world, because some semblance of bonds were better than none at all.

Glancing up, Trev frowned at seeing how the dubious squint hadn’t vanished. It was still trained on him like a weapon, poised to fire. (_Not the nicest example to equate it to, but for him guns were never far from his mind - for a variety of reasons_.)  
Trying to sideline such discouraging thoughts, he cleared his throat. “I guess… Nick is already there?”  
Dennis made an affirmative hum, finally easing off on the skeptical expression a touch. “He wanted to run this fetch quest instead. I convinced him otherwise.”  
Brows furrowing, Trev sat up from where he had pressed into the seat. There was no further he could get away in that direction, anyway. “Why? He wouldn’t have been a bother... if that’s what you‘re implying.”  
The taller Lenore sibling’s reputation preceded him. How bothersome said brother was or wasn’t evidently didn’t factor in here, as Dennis scoffed nevertheless. “Meaning, he wouldn’t have asked you too many questions, or made you uncomfortable like I am now.”

A very perceptive response, coming from him. Trev glanced away again.  
Letting it simmer a moment, Dennis explained: “Kid, it’s only because I care that I take any digs at you- not that he doesn’t care too, but anyone can see you need pryin’ to even cough up a ‘Hello’, and it isn’t Nick’s style to do that if he can see how uncomfortable you still are.”

In an ideal world, that is just the kind of person Trevor would prefer to be spending time with, if he were forced to pick between chaperones. Despite his looming stature, Nick wasn’t half as imposing as Dennis could be. Such niceties didn’t extend to both in equal measure.  
“I think I’m doing okay, compared to where I was, don’t you?”  
“Oh? You’re constantly wallin’ people off. Okay is a word that didn’t occur to me.”  
“It hasn’t affected me that… adversely.”  
“Not yet. You want to try and tell me your career won’t suffer for it in the long run?”  
“All due respect, sir, I’ve already had my psych eval this week. Isn’t asking such questions now kinda defeating the point of going out to enjoy ourselves?”

Rolling his eyes, going by the minute pause in his words, Dennis sat up and reached over to tap the frames of Langley’s glasses. “You’re still wearing these when you don’t need them. If you were actually out to forget your troubles and enjoy the night, you woulda left them at the dorm.”  
Recoiling, Trev shot him a standoffish glower. The cab was too small a space for his liking all of a sudden. How Dennis could essentially take one look at him and figure all these confused signals out was even less appealing. But then, Detective Lenore was known for that; if he hadn’t been a cop, psychologist wasn’t too far off, given his upbringing.

“You don’t know that. I enjoy myself without any hints blatantly on display, sir.”  
“That’s a crock of shit, and you know it,” Dennis challenged. “Shut up in a room for hours on end focused only on studyin’ isn’t healthy, Langley. You gotta get out and _live_ a bit. Dealing with Nick taught me all about that. Grateful or not, I suppose there’ll be time enough afterward for you to thank me later.”

Shuttling itself through the traffic as smoothly as a figure skater, the taxi took them past the last few commercial blocks and into a rundown suburb sitting on the Detroit-Warren limits, a quaint neighborhood of working class families living well off the combined metropolis to either side. The Fleurs were apparently cut from the same cloth, even if they made upwards of twenty million each year, and they weren’t averse to entertaining visitors. Said destination was still forty minutes away, going by the timer on the taxi’s dashboard: the estate on the northern shore of Lake St. Claire may as well have been another city unto itself, with how far off it seemed.  
There would be his first round of lessons in learning how to let go and just be lax for a spell. He was overcomplicating this in his own head, but if Dennis really understood anything about him, he knew just how tough a habit that would be to break. One dinner wasn’t going to miraculously change him, or so he surmised, but who knew? Maybe a stint outside of Zion would do him good. Surrounded by another crowd of near-strangers with entirely normal expectations of him could be just what the doctor ordered.  
Or it could be exactly what he didn’t need to be reminded of. This constant wallowing in between hadn’t been pleasant on the whole. Without something to sway him one way or another, how else was he going to figure out what he ultimately preferred? Dennis Lenore had had more than a few years to figure him_self_ out, so it was easy for him to say what Trevor did or didn’t need. He had experience and perspective to call on, perks of being an older model and all.  
Lucky him.

*** * ***

Sitting atop a hill on two thousand acres of southeastern Michigan woodland, with its southernmost edge reaching right down to the beach, the mansion itself wasn’t visible from the road. After being buzzed through the front gate it was still a two minute journey up the cobblestone driveway. Framed by thick-trunked oak trees, rectangular hedges and multicolored flowerbeds, the ornate, ivory structure was eventually revealed, facing an adjacent parking garage no less grand and steepled.  
The bay doors of the garage stood open, lights on, spotlighting the four vintage automobiles neatly lined up within. The Detroit taxi idling looked so boxy and very not-sleek compared to the likes of all American muscle- a black 1969 Ford Mustang, a pearlescent yellow 2001 C5 Z06 Chevy Corvette, a purple and black 1970 Plymouth Fury, and a cherry red 1968 Dodge Charger had been pulled out and put on display for guests to admire.  
They seemed right at home next to the lavish mansion, which vaguely resembled a state capitol building or a downsized museum without its signature dome. East and west wings stretched open to either side at a one-hundred and thirty degree angle, banister flags draped from every windowsill. Footpaths wound off to snake around the estate, trailing off into various gardens and parts of the woods, leading to other much smaller structures and cabanas spread across the property.  
The main entrance was a hike at least twenty steps high to a landing midway up, then to a summit guarded by two pedestals framed by half a dozen stone vases full of flowers. It was in peak summertime bloom, greenery everywhere and no gray urban confines in sight, besides the cars on display. The air was thick with the smell of them mixed with fresh cut grass after a cleansing rain, but one whiff confirmed there was more on the wind tonight than natural aromas. There was also the smoky, husky smell of meat simmering on a grill.  
As soon as the cab door slid open, Trev hesitated to step out. The last time he had cause to smell burning anything was back in Boston.  
_-the horrifying sight of every other building along the avenue aflame, screams emanating from within, no fire department on its way to save the day, but all he could do was run-_

“Kid, _move_.”

One little prodding nudge at his shoulder drew a flinch out of him, and he hurriedly stepped out of the cab in the intended direction while avoiding meeting Dennis’ eyes.  
“What’s the matter? You look like…” Circling to look at him, Lenore trailed off. He knew the rabbit-eyed expression and what it signified. Reading the muted silence as what it was, he patted Trev’s shoulder reassuringly. “It’s okay. I’ll make the introductions, all right?”  
“Yes, sir,” he mumbled half-heartedly. Even if Dennis was used to it to the point he didn’t care either way, adding the honorific always served to keep authority figures assuaged. He was more of a guide than a friend, so it wasn’t unreasonable - the first time they met, he’d promptly knocked Trevor’s lights out; for his own good, of course. Kind of like now- dragging him along to this get-together, never minding the reluctance or snippiness; it _was_ for his own good.  
He was never violent or forceful without reason; dealing with his so-called brother, who was described by most to be as skittish as a deer caught in headlights, had helped him hone it. And now here was Trevor, testing him in all sorts of ways similar yet unfamiliar. As mentor and understudy, they fit together fantastically.

Trekking up the steps, he fell in behind and beside the off-duty detective, taking a second to appreciate his more casual wear of jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie. It made the burgundy suit and loafers feel even more unnecessary, even if it made him look classier and more put-together on the outside, despite the mess inside.  
The person to answer the door before Dennis had even lifted his finger from the buzzer didn’t read much into it either way. He was simply happy to see them, as evidenced by the unabashed group hug he greeted both of them with, knocking Trevor’s glasses askew.  
“H-hi, Dr. Lenore,” he stammered, managing to duck out from under his arm.

“Oh, come _on,_ Trev. Not _you, too_.” Unwinding one long arm to recapture the new visitor, he frowned as Langley stepped aside and out of range. Nicholas Lenore wasn’t half as formal as his name would suggest, though part of that was his looks, which were all gangly and sloped in ways Dennis’ weren’t. The other half of the reasoning was the insistence that followed. “You can call me Nick, same as everyone else, remember?”  
Though he was one of Zion’s best-qualified physicians, when he wasn’t tending to a patient his behavior was more akin to that of an excitable ten-year-old boy: all optimistic and well meaning, with no attitude to spoil it. Incongruous didn’t begin to describe him as a whole.  
“I did. I-I just…” Not quite sure if he should finish that thought, Trevor blinked and shifted his gaze aside. “You startled us, is all.”  
“Speak for yourself, Langley,” Dennis muttered, face half-squashed, still pinned against the other’s jacket. “I’m used to this sorta thing.”  
“I didn’t mean to, sorry.” Nick apologized the moment he remembered, let go of his brother and steered them inside to close the door. “It’s good to see you both. Everyone else is busy talking or cooking, so I thought I’d make myself useful and play doorman for a bit.”  
“Nice of you,” Dennis commented airily as he rolled his shoulder and stretched it. “God- you _really_ need a warning label for those damn hugs, though. All these years, you think I’d have realized it sooner and slapped one on the back of your head.”  
_Assuming he didn’t need a ladder to reach it._  
“No, I don’t, I’m careful every time!”  
“_Sure_, careful not to completely and permanently dent someone.”

Leaving them to their banter for a moment, Trev stole a look around the foyer. A big, spectacular ballroom painted in soft browns and shades of ivory, red, and gold, housed a golden grand chandelier and a mosaic marble floor which stretched the length of the space several hundred feet across the room to the foot of a centralized staircase leading up to the second floor wings. To the left, halfway into the room, sat a sharp black grand piano beside a few free-standing planters filled with flowers and creeping ferns on either side, and a chaise lounge to the left of it. A few oil portraits hung on the front and side walls, and at the top of the stairs, assumed commissioned works so lifelike he could tell who the people featured were without introductions being needed. Wherever the flesh-and-blood Fleurs presently were, they weren’t within sight.  
Or so he thought.

Movement caught his eye. The door was so far away, Trevor almost missed it, as Nick and Dennis seemed to have- but two doors down from the top of the staircase to the right, a figure reached out through the illuminated cracked door and quietly pulled it shut; instead of a face, all he glimpsed was a tattooed wrist. It appeared someone else here was as disinterested in the event as he was. Not given free reign to wander just yet, he set curiosity aside and drifted after his escorts.  
“-favor, and don’t go out of your way to confuse him, got it?” Dennis scolded, around the same time Trevor opted to start listening again. It went without saying who the ‘him’ in the statement was.  
“Confuse, how?” Confirming the assumption, Nick tossed him a very overt glance. He always looked so unintentionally aloof, with those mismatched green-brown eyes, pitchy voice, and slightly-knotted chestnut hair. “I don’t do it on purpose… and Trevor’s smart enough to figure it out if in the event I do.”  
“Sure, I know lots of words with three syllables, minimum,” Trev played along, shrugging with a self-depreciating smile. Even if their argument wasn’t exactly serious, it would only help to clarify what his boundaries and possible triggers were. “But it’s not that kind of confused he’s talking about, Doctor.”

“Oh, right.” Nick only responded with an absent blink. Physicians were inherently prone to speaking with a certain over-eloquence, using big words without meaning to, making those around them feel either dumbed down or alienated or both. Being forever mindful he wasn’t stepping on toes or offending anyone (_and constantly worrying for the welfare of those around him_), Nick stopped them from proceeding on through to the dining room to offer a last bit of encouragement.  
“Well, that said- if you feel too bothered by any of this, let us know. No one expects you to stay if you don’t want to.”  
Trev nodded. He shouldn’t need this much coaching to make a few simple meetings, but it was always better to take time for a little extra prep work, lest something short circuit.

*** * ***

“He doesn’t _look_ like an android, though...”  
“Yeah, well, he wouldn’t, right? The whole point is, you can’t know just from _looking_ at someone.”  
“But he’s studying at Archangel? Humans don’t enroll there, but if they ever did, I’d-”  
“Boys, _please_. You’ve barely said hello back and now you’re on to this. Give him some breathing room.”

Trev stood back from the dining table-turned-buffet and glanced over the edge of his drink in silent gratitude as Dennis ran interference, shepherding the gawkers out of his presence. The youngest members of the Fleur clan, nine-year-old Ethan and seven-year-old Isaiah, weren’t so shy as to resist bombarding him with questions the moment their elders looked in the other direction. It wasn’t that they meant any harm- Trev couldn’t fault them for wanting to get close and see for themselves, being the excitable, impressionable boys they were, but Ethan’s parting remark still stung more than he wanted to admit.

“He looks _just_ like Connor, too. I told you!”  
“_Ethan_!” Dahlia squatted down and popped the boy softly on the behind as she shooed them away, reminding them that they ‘knew better’ than to say such things. While most androids had been created to look the same, the Fleurs had all been raised (_since her adoption into the family_) to recognize each as an individual, and not treat them as duplicates. This was easier done in the cases of Nick, Dennis, and Dahlia, who looked nothing like their default models.  
That in mind, Trev reminded himself it wasn’t the worst reveal he had ever suffered. Few things could measure up to Nicodemus shattering the human veneer Cyberlife had so painstakingly applied. Being compared to the most infamous of the RK800s was a pinprick compared to _that_ sledgehammer.

With the exception of the two boys, the rest of the clan was proving genial enough. For being multimillionaire moguls of the music industry (_responsible for finding at least ten of the current top forty artists of the past five years_), they dressed almost demurely for the occasion. Richard Fleur was at least six feet of middle-aged stoic, unreserved Britishness, more personable and less stern than expected but certainly from high societal stock. His wife, Ophelia, was altogether different his polar opposite both in appearance and respective origin of South Africa. Poised and reserved in her enthusiasm for conversation, she exuded a more regal presence than her husband. His posh drawl paired nicely with her distinctive Johannesburg dialect.

Trev took a minute sip of his drink, noting neither of them had worn suits or evening gowns, but kept the observation to himself as he sat down.  
“I _really_ overdressed, didn’t I?”  
“Just a little…” A flinching nod of agreement crinkled Dahlia’s nose, yet she bore a small smile in sympathy as she flipped the hem of her maxi dress out from between the heel of her foot and the heel of her shoes.  
“But it’s what you wanted, I figured better to let you have it,” Dennis explained as she moved to lean down and greet him with a kiss, then pulled out the seat to her left; his lingering smirk wasn’t sympathetic or mocking, just the result of how preoccupied he always tended to get in her presence (_the joke being, making sure he wasn’t stepped on_). “It’s closer to what you’re used to wearing anyway, right? Back in- the old days?”

Now _there_ was an inappropriately appropriate way of putting it.  
“_Sure_, similar…” Trev hated how such an otherwise innocent question called up so many mixed feelings. Out of nervous habit, he went for another sip so small he may as well have only wet his lips. Dennis knew better than to ask, but to avoid every little uncomfortable conversation would defeat the purpose of being there. Langley blinked back the nervousness as best he could and shrugged, hoping it came across as dismissive. “If anything, I feel more under-dressed in class. I don’t know if I’d call cadet duds a uniform, but…”  
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who had a hard time disconnecting from his work. To his right, Nick had taken a moment to do some follow-up work on a tablet held in one splayed hand, but picked the conversation back up where the others failed to. “Zach hated cadet gear, too. It was too plain. We used to have to wear suits _every day_, company mandate.”  
“Yeah, but after the revolution…? Good luck getting him to let go of it,” Dennis added, with some wry fondness. “Like a kid carryin’ around their favorite blanket- that jacket was ready to fall apart at the seams by the time Sarah peeled it off.”

_After a couple years of continuous use?_ Trev declined to ask and swirled the contents of his glass in a gentle counterclockwise circle, knowing it was probably just exaggeration for the sake of story.  
“I don’t miss it _that_ much. And most of the- _time_ I was in basic patrol garb, anyway. Not like-…” Even as he veered off from saying his name, his glass-holding hand shook. As he set it down, he reached for the nearest napkin to wipe the sweat off his palm- water from the glass, nothing _he_ actually sweated out.  
Dennis’ casual smirk melted off as he watched him fidget. He knew without being told who Trev was thinking of. “You’ll get used to it. You’ve been enrolled for what, a couple months?”  
“Basically.” Trev sat back in his chair so as to not be pinned between Dahlia and Nick’s curiosity. “I mean- there’s not much I don’t already know, but Detroit’s not quite on the same level Boston is with… statistics. Criminal types here don’t seem to be given to the same pursuits.”  
“Has Zion treated you well, at least..?” Dahlia’s question was genuine, but naïve in the way anyone who didn’t know him would be. She had only ever met him after Boston -or _Purgatory_ as it had been temporarily known- was brought under control. Zion was paradise compared to what he had seen there, even with its own slew of district-specific issues. Unique to him was the fact it was the best possible place he could be- everyday discrepancies notwithstanding.  
“So far, yes. No one… has given me too much trouble.” None that they didn’t mean to give, anyway. Thinking twice of how that probably sounded, he tried for a mollifying smile. “The folks at the academy are agreeable enough. They’ve probably laid off the hazing because they’re not sure how I’ll take it.”  
Because instabilities had to be good for _something_.

Dennis hummed a not-so-convinced affirmative. “Sure. That’s Langley-speak for ‘not yet, they haven’t’. Even I went through a bit of fine tuning there, Trevor. No special treatment when it comes to who gets to be the butt of a prank.”  
He sounded so genial about it, Trev was inclined to doubt the claim’s validity; if it was true, Lenore was doing an admirable job of underselling his outrage. “No? What’d they end up doing to you, then?”  
“Filled my locker with maple leaves.” At the two, not quite three, disbelieving glances this answer earned him, Dennis shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it was supposed to make me feel at home. Montreal was that, for a few years.”  
“Sounds more like blatant stereotyping… you aren’t Canadian.”  
Met with a deadpan sidelong look, Dennis scoffed. “Pft. You think it mattered to them at the time, Langley? If it did that’d defeat the whole point of a prank.”  
Trev acknowledged it with a nod and another sip of his drink, realizing how painfully literal his thought processes could sometimes be. The blue substance didn’t have much flavor aside from a refreshing coolness as it went down. If he ignored what it was, it didn’t look like he was drinking antifreeze.

Music, laughter, and voices drifted in from the open patio doors. Adjacent to the dining room was the gathering space where most of the estate’s visitors had congregated, Viv and Hank among them. There was where the smells of grilling and sizzling were most prominent. At a guess the gathering was approximately three-quarters humans to one-fourth androids; and at the moment, it seemed all those confirmed as such were seated at this table. Lopping himself in under that category, Trev pursed his lips and set the glass down once again. The little daily reminders of his old life were everywhere he looked, and he didn’t need them as much as he did. A couple months in protective custody under observation hadn’t assuaged them- if anything he missed the certainty, false as it was. Now he had nothing but uncertainty, and the constant wear of it was chafing something fierce.

_Aaaand five bucks says Nick is staring so hard, he’s trying to burn holes in the side of my head._

As he glanced aside he caught just the barest hint of motion from the taller android, whose focus immediately shifted back to the tablet. Trev knew an aborted look when he saw one, enhanced reaction times or not.  
“What about that, Dahlia?” he asked, trying again for impartial dialogue in the face of all his skittishness. “Is your family the wild type, or is that just the two boys?”  
“Three,” she corrected with a small hint of a smile and a quiet exhale through her nose. “You’ll have to watch out for Dylan, too, if he ever comes out of his studio...”

The sighing and eye-rolling was contagious- not so much uttered in distaste as much as in disappointment. Nick shrunk down in his seat a hair at the mention of the boy’s name, but perked up as Rhea (_having just come in from the patio_) placed an understanding hand on his shoulder.  
“I doubt we’ll see him today, it’s been a _long time_ since he’s shown his face at any social gatherings.”  
“Then what do you call him picking on us?” Nick whined as she sat down beside him and gave his hand a squeeze.  
“_Jealousy_,” she replied with a quiet smile. “He had my full attention before you came along.”

Trev looked from one pair to the other and considered his newfound stance between them. He deduced out the whys in short order, decidedly ignoring the outdated examples in his own head claiming to know what it was to have siblings. He glanced back toward the crowded patio as he considered this new information. So he wasn’t the only one present who had an aversion to crowds. But didn’t groups make the most rewarding prank targets? To incite the most amount of mayhem in the least amount of time?

“Well, jealous or no, he can keep to himself if it so suits him. I’m not out to steal any of his remaining siblings away.”  
Dennis scoffed, but it was half a laugh. “Don’t assume that means you’re safe. Any reason to hit you with inanimate objects is a good one,” he explained, presumably recalling the few times he’d been assaulted with nerf darts and paintballs the very moment he’d walked through the door.  
“Isaiah told me about this time they folded enough paper airplanes to launch off an aircraft carrier and take over Taiwan. Once the snow went away, Ethan wanted to do his homework outside, but after giving Izzie enough grief they decided he wouldn’t be able to finish it in peace- whatever window he sat under, at _least_ three found their way into his lap.”

_How dastardly. _  
Trev took another not-sip with only the tiniest of eye rolls. Nonchalance should have been his reaction of choice from the start. “He sounds very… conniving.”  
“Impish is a better word for it.”  
“A conniving imp, then. One quality serves to define the other.”  
It certainly explained the closing door, and if that was the bare minimum of rebelliousness they could expect to see tonight, that was more than tolerable.  
“So… if he’s a no-show, when are you gonna put the nerves aside and go mingle?” Dennis propped an elbow up on the table as he nodded toward the patio and leaned a cheek against his curled fist. “You can’t nurse one drink all evening.”

_Watch me. _  
Meeting his arched eyebrow with one of his own, Trev went for the next question on the proverbial checklist. “When did you all meet? I mean, I know that’s a lot of origin stories, but where did it start?”  
“When Dahlia broadsided me with a door,” he recalled without reservation, to her complete and utter mortification. “I deserved it, being the stoolie dumbass standing where I was.”  
The redhead immediately flushed bright red and buried her face in Dennis’ shoulder with an embarrassed laugh. “It was an _accident_! I didn’t expect you to be standing there…”

And so went their storytelling, fondly recounting how one chance run-in at the Motown Lounge led to this happy, steady state of affairs for them. Past a certain point Trev only listened half heartedly, their enthusiasm just a little too much for him to stomach.  
New noise caught his hypersensitive ear again from atop the stairs- as the door creaked open, a shadowy figure moved from the studio two doors down the hall and shut it behind him. The only one who seemed to notice aside from Trevor was Dennis, blue eyes darting in the direction of the click some four hundred feet, one floor and a few rooms across the mansion, before looking back at Dahlia.

As both of them fell quiet and no one opted to keep up that line of thought, Nick sighed and put the tablet down, circling back to the elephant _still_ in the room. Perhaps he had noticed after all.  
“He doesn’t need to keep acting all jealous. We’re easy enough to get along with, and his paintings are nice.”  
“Oh? You been spyin’ on him?” Dennis teased, even as Trev frowned and raised his eyeline to the impassive ceiling. “You’ve spent a lot of hours with your back turned at that piano. Risky business.”  
Nick shook his head, failing to see the humor in such a comment, too caught up worrying over what could be done to ingratiate themselves. He didn’t cope very well with thoughts of being at odds with anybody: family, friend, and certainly not foe. No wonder he had stayed as far away from Boston as physically possible.

Trev traced a fingertip over the rim of the glass in contemplative gesture. Apparently the missing link fancies themselves a painter. The minute beads of sweat, smeared and not, stood out like little crystalline glints of ice. Chilled thirium wasn’t meant to grow warm any more than fidgety Dr. Lenore had business in a city under siege.  
“Not _so_ risky- it sounds like they’re both of the artistic persuasion… just different instruments.” Hooking a fingernail on the rim, he pressed and noted how it didn’t bend back, then rolled his eyes. The urge to self-pity out loud hit hard and he went for a small dose of it.  
“But I don’t know him, hardly better than I know any of you. Must be nice to hold such… easy company.”

Rhea had had her eye on Trev from the moment she walked into the room. All of the nuances in his body language _-the subtle fidgeting, the way he averted his eyes, hiding behind the frames, and kept his jaw tight with lips thinly drawn, the crease in his forehead from pressed brows-_ and the way he avoided talking about himself by asking questions just to divert the topic, were enough to express to most that he was visibly uncomfortable. But being the observant and experienced counselor she was, she could probably tell this was more than just surface tension.  
“It comes in time with conscious effort,” she offered with a sympathetic smile, stealing a glance aside to Nick and lifting a hand to thread into his hair and scratch at the back of his head. “I had to really fight for this one’s attention… didn’t want anything much to do with me when we first met.”  
“Hey! That’s not true!” he protested with a huff, Rhea’s head rolling back with a smile and focusing her gaze on the ceiling momentarily. When she didn’t immediately refute him, he uncertainly amended, “I was just… nervous.”  
“So nervous you turned me down every opportunity you were given, even when things were still platonic,” she teased with a pop of her brows and a smirk. “But… the point is this.” Rhea focused her honey brown eyes on Trev across the table. “Familiarity is _cultivated_\- we didn’t click the moment we met. It might look easy now, but we had a rough start getting here. So give yourself time, and leave the door open- you’ll find that easy company soon enough.”

She meant well, saying such things. Trev would have liked to listen and believe it in equal measure, but even the concept of basic familiarity didn’t really apply. It wasn’t a straight line between points. It was a snaking twisting route that doubled back on itself and wound around in ways these four had no conceivable idea of (_or so he thought_). None of them could know, was the worst part.  
“Sure.” Trev glanced sidelong toward the patio, leaving his response as one clipped word. The music drifting in was an assortment of classic rock that he could kill a few seconds trying to put a name with the lyrics with.  
Dennis gave a _hmph_ of agreement, counterpointing her advice nicely. “You wouldn’t be the first one who took his time about it, kid. But you know you’ve got friends here, no matter what the academy throws at you, right?”

As close as they _could be_, anyway.  
Pegging the musician as the late Bruce Springsteen, Trev bit the inside of one cheek. A bit of insight wasn’t horrible to hear, but if this was the part where he thought laying it on thick was a good idea, Lenore could drop it. This wasn’t meant to be an interrogation posing as small talk.  
“The academy hasn’t been so bad compared to… _this_.” He gestured vaguely at their surroundings, then reached for the glass again as the hurt, defensive expressions painted their faces one by one. Once it was empty, he could politely excuse himself for a refill.  
“This just isn’t my kind of familiar. Here is-… there aren’t-…” The thought fizzled into nothing as he drummed his fingers on the tabletop, and he muttered his last thought under his breath, useless as it was considering these were androids listening to him. “Bugger it. You have your normal and I have mine.”  
Dennis knocked a foot against the leg of his chair. “_Hey_. Don’t get all sour on us now. We’re only trying to help, not bust your balls.”

Trev drained what was left of the blue substance and breathed out through his nose to cover the loud swallow. “I appreciate the disclaimer. _Really_. But I seem to have run out of refreshments, so if it’s all the same, I'll help myself to another.”  
Even that much called up an unpleasant phantom of a memory.  
_-drinks with the squad after the successful closure of a half dozen interlinked cases, narcotics off the streets, justice for the dead almost a gimme- _  
He scooted his chair back out of the focal point between the two couples, and instantly felt less claustrophobic for it. Trev started to move away from the table but reached back and grabbed the glass he’d almost forgotten, decidedly avoiding any of their eyes and ignoring whatever protests they tried to voice.

Not even five steps out of the dining room on his way to the kitchen, a foam dart with a rubber tip pelted him in the side of the head. The flinch it drew brought him to a temporary stop. From behind a potted plant near the grand piano to his left, Ethan giggled and sprinted across the room and up the stairs, darting down the west wing, presumably toward his bedroom, before Trev could retaliate. The bright orange-yellow nerf pistol in his hand instantly marked him as the culprit. Compared to the last bullet that had hit him, this was no great insult to suffer; it was tolerable next to the nitpicking, well-meaning offers of help he was being pincered between just a minute earlier.  
Trev stopped to pick up the toy dart and dropped it into the empty glass to set both items aside on an end table, then looked up at the steps and all the wings they could lead to. It was a tempting place to get lost- he could wander the halls for a spell, see what there was to behold, maybe glimpse some of that art Nick mentioned. If Ethan Fleur wanted to take repeated potshots at him only to scurry off, at least his awkward presence would provide amusement for _somebody’s_ sake. Better that than to be put on the spot and start confronting the first mixed-up impulses about himself amidst the company of an impromptu therapy group. That was the kind of soap opera tripe irate inner monologues were better suited to.

_‘Help’. **They** can help **me**. What do they know? It’s all just conjecture and secondhand accounts. None of them were there, they couldn’t know what it was like before, they don’t know what it’s like now. They shouldn’t bother themselves with trying to understand. I’m not broke, I’m just - resetting._

Even _thinking_ it made his insides churn. Knowing now that it wasn’t anything like indigestion or an empty gut causing such sensations, it only served to make him walk faster, just to get moving and try to forget again.  
His once-clear HUD filled with a few cursory warnings, reacting in time with the pique in stress, but he blinked and shook his head once to abolish them. Trev mounted the stairs in several precise steps, steadfastly marching up to the next landing with intent. So what if this area wasn’t for guests to wander off to? It ‘s not like he was planning on swiping anything. He was a _cop_ in a past life, and that wasn’t just hyperbole or metaphorical comparisons at work. He wasn’t some side-show company project, he didn’t need to be set straight simply for having been shown different; he just had to deal, but he would do so at his own pace. He didn’t need any follow-along lessons to help the transition, he only needed space- closed, simple, _quiet_ space, without anyone in it.

_“Oh, yes, gorgeous little android-centric district you have going on here. Me? You say I need answers to my jacked-up life? ‘No worries! Welcome to Zion. We’ve got more than enough lived-in personalities offering sage, tried-and-true advice to help you out. Just gotta give us a chance’.” Like a tacky sales pitch at a used car lot. Wasn’t what I was already doing called living? In some form, if not how they knew it? Know it? I wasn’t bunking in any fancy mansion nibbling on crepes while the rest of the world tried to sort out its own problems because machines had to go and get all uppity over not being allowed their full potential. Yeah, well, what good does potential do you when you don’t even know it’s a… thing?_

Walking on autopilot, without necessarily looking where he was going, Trev only slowed down at the top of the staircase to turn the corner to the east wing. The cracked marble columns and wood-paneled walls overlooked a tasteful beige runner on the same mosaic tiled floor, accented only by a few more ferns on pedestals standing sentry outside of closed bedroom doors. Windows lined the furthest wall, opening up to the greenhouse at the mansion’s back.  
But he paid all of it no mind for longer than a fraction of a second, too taken aback by the painted likeness of Dahlia Fleur looking down on him from his left, just outside the curiously open door. The dimensions of the canvas scrawled across his eyes on automatic- rendered in traditional oil pigments, whomever had captured her likeness didn’t simply copy it. The brush strokes, invisible to human eyes, struck him as even and smooth, with no unsightly pause marks or remnants of gopey residue. Her freckled skin was only slightly bronzed for effect, complementing the cool background and the emerald green gown she wore. Gazing sidelong over her bare shoulder, expression sedate yet slightly coy, fingers lifted to rest on her chin as if poised in thought, her lengthy crimson locks of hair had been loosed from whatever binds that once might have held them back. It was quite the exquisite portrait for what most human owners might have only seen, at one time, as a serving classic domestic android.  
Staring at her perhaps a bit too long, Trev didn’t see the rubber band before it bounced off his temple, nor the shadow just out of the corner of his vision that had sent it flailing his way.

Speak the devil's name, and he shall appear.

“Hey, wiseguy- quit eyeballin’ my sister.”


	2. Engage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor finds the wayward Fleur sibling and discovers there's a lot more to the boy than rumors let on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find this on:
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**July 4th, 2041 - 7:56 PM**

The appearance of the elusive gremlin was as unsurprising as it was surprising, just as he both was and wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. His honey-brown skin, auburn red hair, and generous number of freckles pegged him a Fleur without a doubt, but compared to the rest of his kin (_including the youngest boys_), he was certainly the most informally-dressed. Typical of most art students, he favored comfort over fashion, while still maintaining some sort of hipster style. A loose gray v-neck shirt under a long-sleeved black cardigan that hung down to his calves, obscured the waistline of a pair of slim-cut, tattered jean-shorts (_spotted from years of dry-brushing to switch colors_) down to his knees. About five different black corded necklaces of varying length, set both tight and loose over black-inked tattoos splayed around the back and sides of his neck, completed the picture of the family ‘black sheep’ in exhausting detail.  
Though most worrisome was the ever-growing smirk twitching its way into his cheeks the longer he stared at the newcomer that had knowingly breached the boundary of his territory. It didn’t bode well for anyone trying to not get roped into upcoming shenanigans.

“If you’ve got a thing for redheads, you’re in the right place, but she’s already spoken for,” Fleur teased as he snapped one more rubber band into the side of his shoulder.  
Trev stared him down but didn’t bother affecting a scowl or a flinch, having seen it coming. “I know, so your warning is hereby rendered painfully redundant,” he stated with a tilt of his head, still preoccupied with studying the young man’s appearance.  
“Yeah…?” The boy’s brows twitched with a soft pop between the eyes, a misdirect for the extra stretch taken to grin. “Then who’re you?”  
A simple enough question, except when it wasn’t. Trev only bothered with crossing his arms. He wasn’t about to launch into that topic all over again with the family outcast. “A guest of Detective Lenore. So you can see why I am in the know of his and - Miss Fleur’s association.” After letting that information sink in for a moment, he added, “And I needed a break from the company, in part because of it-”  
The rubber band on the tip of his finger stretched back, poised to fire, but it halted when he instead gave a half laugh and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I could tell- I heard you coming a mile away,” he commented before letting the band fly, this time flinging across his visitor’s other shoulder. “Those hurried, annoyed steps really carry in here when you’ve got two wooden blocks in your soles.”  
“Very astute observation,” Trev retorted, eyes narrowing, slowly coming around to the thought of disliking this one’s company as well. As if the arm-folding wasn’t hint enough. “That said, me and my hurried, annoyed steps will just be going, then.”  
Predictably enough, the moment he tried stepping away, another band zinged toward him. He stopped short just in time for it to wing by his nose, having anticipated it.  
“It only gets more peopley the further you get toward that side of the house,” Fleur informed as he loaded another rubber band, tilted his head, and squinted skeptically. “Didn’t you say you wanted a break from that…?”  
“Yes, well, your mansion is so _small_, I went looking for no one and still ran into _you_.”  
The redhead pursed his lips, clicked his tongue, and chuckled with a coy grin. “Sure you weren’t just _drawn here_ by my charm? I’ve been told it’s magnetic.”  
“More like repulsive, so I’ll just be on my-“  
Trev happened to look away at just the wrong time- the next rubber band clipped him right across the forehead, harder than the rest. Expecting the boy to look as cross as he felt, Trevor huffed and turned back to find him on the verge of bubbling over with laughter, chest rattling with only the faintest hint of a wheeze. Exasperation didn’t begin to describe the feeling the sight evoked.  
“What are you- _stop that_,” he demanded, patience finally worn thin enough to warrant a reaction.  
“C’moooon…” Fleur drawled as he primed another rubber band and rolled his head against the wall he’d been leaning on, ankles crossed and shoulders slumped. He creased his brow and turned muddied green eyes to regard him, and from somewhere behind the couldn’t-care-less façade flashed a moment of sympathetic candor. “You _really_ wanna go back to all that _weird family bullshit_…?”

The accuracy of his assumption caught him off guard, but considering they were the only two people in the house actively trying to avoid the festivities, it wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion to draw; however, it was his choice of words that grabbed his attention. “Weird family bullshit” at an event thrown primarily for friends was entirely too specific.  
_No_, he thought with a small pout. He _didn’t_ want to go back to it. Trev knew the last thing he wanted was to be needled and patted on the head and told everything would work itself out. All he had to do was ‘chin up and smile and play along’. They made it sound so disgustingly easy.  
Standing here letting himself be a target of another sort was hardly better, but in a way, this cursory annoyance was easier to bear. Trev’s fingers curled into fists and he let his arms drop from their folded position, shoulders hunched in clear aggravation.  
“Say I do. Are you going to follow me all the way back?”  
Undeterred, another shot snapped Trev across the hip, causing him to flinch and flare his nostrils. “Sure you wouldn’t rather do something _fun_ instead…?”  
“I have my own idea of fun, and it doesn’t involve-“ Another shot slapped across the back of his hand before he could finish the thought, and he yelped quietly and yanked it out of the way a split second too late. “...rubber BANDS, for starters.  
“Then let’s do something else, ya wet blanket,” Fleur suggested in a mocking tone.  
“I _am_, I’m _leaving_, something you can’t-“ Another popped him square in the middle of the forehead. “Seem to-” Followed by another in the neck. “Grasp- for the love of- KNOCK IT OFF!”  
“_Ah ah ah_-” the man scolded with a smirk as he impudently wagged a finger and loaded another rubber band. “The punishment will continue until morale improves.”

Trevor’s lip curled, the corner of his eye twitched in irritation and one finger lifted in idle threat as he warned, as calmly as he could manage, “If you keep shooting those at me, I am well within my rights to confiscate them as evidence of-“  
But it only served to embolden his assailant’s taunting. One, two, three, then four pelted him in rapid succession, leaving Trevor flinching, backstepping, and sidestepping, as he attempted to block every last one.  
“-_haraSSMENT_!” The second half of his threat stuttered out with an angry huff.  
“Go ahead and try,” his opponent laughed, “But be warned, I have worse things in my pockets that’ll find their way onto your clothes before you can get to them.”  
As that constituted a fair warning, a second scanning look with a few extra filters layered on confirmed as much. His heads-up-display outlined about a dozen round objects filled with some sort of liquid, stuffed into the deep outside pockets of his cardigan, as well as a few unconventional inner pockets. Trev grimaced and shook his head at the sight, less perturbed by what the contents could be than the fact his mind engaged such programs on automatic -depending on the input given, like Fleur admitting to being armed for mischief- without his consent. Of _course_ it would scan to see what concealed weapons there might be.  
Convenient as those features were, sometimes he missed the days when he was too naïve to have ever been aware of those programs.  
But now that they’d come to an impasse, he couldn’t get closer, as much as he couldn’t walk away- “_non-negotiable nonsense_”, as Spencer might have called it. Coining such a term to describe the paradox which typically triggered a deviant break had been astute of him.

Trev’s expression soured at the reminder, and he turned away. “Go find someone else to pelt and laugh at. I’m-“  
The redheaded, squinting blue-eyed face he almost stepped into stopped him cold. “You’re what, Langley? Off to places unknown?”  
He turned to hide the embarrassment flushing into his cheeks but found himself stuck between two people he didn’t want to speak to. _Naturally_ someone had come looking when he didn’t return with a fresh drink like he’d claimed to have left for, and _of course_, that person was Dennis.  
_Better go find your missing puppy, Lenore, before he trips and falls down a foxhole_, Trev retorted inwardly.  
Interestingly enough, his company also seemed perturbed by Dennis’ sudden arrival. The Fleur rolled his eyes and exhaled a loud sigh. “Go away, Den,” he muttered as he turned his whole body and leaned back with his shoulders flat against the wall, slight tension evident in his tone and body language. The boy’s fingers stiffened and his jaw clenched as the Detective peered over at him from behind Trev’s shoulder. Not that Langley was curious enough to ask, but there was clearly more to the story there. At least, for now,, they could agree on finding Lenore’s presence a bother, albeit for different reasons.

“Hmph. Knew you’d bite if I brought bait.”  
His choice of adjective was enough to get a raised eyebrow out of Trevor, if not a revolted frown. He did not appreciate the notion of having been brought anywhere without being told he was the lure in a given plan; but then again, Dennis couldn’t have counted on him getting fed up and walking away.  
Or _had_ he?  
After a pause, he glanced back at his mentor and adjusted his frames in nervous habit. “I’m sorry, sir. I was on my way back before this one decided it was _worth_ wasting time to interrupt me-”  
The next rubber band whizzed past him with a sharp _fwip_, picking up enough speed to make sure it would hit Dennis right in the chest. Olive green eyes leered over at him from the direction it had come. “Told you _once_, Detective- you’re not my type.”  
“Yeah…? Well, what about this one?” A thumb and a loosely closed fist gestured toward a slightly flustered Trev (_who sputtered a surprised look of protest and puffed his cheeks_) as Lenore took a few steps forward to stand next to him.  
The boy exhaled long and slow in response, eyes rolling even further into the back of his head before closing completely. “Still deciding,” he mumbled in blatant annoyance. “But I don’t need you to go shoppin’ around for _friends for me_.”  
“No, you probably don’t- but this one is a cut above the other kids you’ve been hangin’ around, even if he’s a tough one to crack. You think you could loosen him up? Without getting any of _that stuff_ on the floor?”  
This much confirmed the balloons definitely weren’t full of water. Trev frowned again, only this time it was out of bewilderment. “What ‘stuff’ do you mean?”  
The boy sighed with an audible groan and turned to face them, pushing himself up on the wall to stand up straight. “I’m _tryin_’, but he’s not makin’ it easy,” he retorted as he shifted his weight and snapped another one at his thigh, at which Trev jumped aside with a half shrieked ‘_STOP IT_!’ Politeness be damned, this was getting to be too much, too fast.  
Dennis’ expression shifted from exasperated to something like smug as he glanced between them. Over _what_ was the question. He looked like someone who had just discovered a reason to be proud of some unintended brilliance; or, much more likely, he was only making that face as to further addle the situation.  
“I could tell you, but that’d ruin the surprise.”  
The creeping grin returned, smaller than it was before, as he threw Dennis a skeptical squint laced with curiosity. “What a _mood_ you’re in…” Fleur commented impishly, as if he was reluctant to see him go. “Why can’t you be this fun _all the time_?”  
Before he could answer or Trev could protest, he let one last band snap across his target’s neck, harder than he had yet, and braced himself for the impending reaction.

A foot chase was the last thing Langley thought he would be doing tonight, but enough was enough. He had hit his threshold for dealing with irritation, however low or high said bar was set that day. Words clearly weren’t going to stop this assault, so the next best thing to do was _make it stop_.  
“I warned you- _MULTIPLE_ times...” Trevor hissed as he stormed over, reached for his sleeve before he could get too far, aiming for the pocket from which most of that ammo had been drawn. “Now hand, them, _over_-!”  
But Fleur was far more nimble than he’d anticipated, and reflexively stepped back in the half-second before Trev could get a secure grip. With a low chuckle of delight, he blitzed out of the way of Trev’s hand, dipped under his arm and bolted through the door of the room he’d been in and out of all night, the hem of his cardigan flapping in the wind draft behind him.  
With a disgruntled sound somewhere between a groan and a shout, Trev rushed after him. Dennis might have said something to the effect of “mind the floors”, but in that moment all Langley was really interested in was a bit of payback. Secret weapon or not, if anything went his way he would get every one of those remaining rubber bands and stretched them until they-

Langley stopped cold in the threshold as a water balloon struck him in the chest and exploded in a canary yellow mess all over his burgundy jacket, splashing a few large drops over his shoulder into his hair and into the hallway. Trevor held his breath until he could feel the thick liquid seeping into his shirt and dripping down his blazer. “_What in the_-”  
_Paint._  
The little devil had filled them with _PAINT_, because _of course he did_.

“I warned you,” the redhead scolded in a sing-songy tone as he tossed another balloon between his hands and flashed him a coy grin. “Follow me, and you’ll only catch another,” he warned with a wink as he trotted back a few steps toward an open door at the back of what looked to be an enormous art studio, furnished just as chaotically as he looked.  
Trev grit his teeth and clenched his fists as his face flushed a darker shade of red than ever, inwardly mortified at what Dennis would think of the now-spattered suit. Now he really _wasn’t_ going to let this stand unanswered.  
“I _said_, get back- hey!”  
One unfortunately-placed puddle of paint foiled a second attempt at catching his sleeve. Trev’s lunge stopped short as he slipped, and his hand caught empty air as the boy laughed and skipped out of the way; another balloon filled with indigo pigment splattered onto his shoulder as he broke the fall with his left hand and right knee. Some of the smaller splashes of yellow on his suit morphed into an unsightly mahogany brown as the new color mixed in with it.  
“Watch your step,” his quarry chimed from the doorway, just before he turned, sprinted out onto the veranda, and vaulted over the balcony railing with an effortless hop.  
Trev did his best to up and follow, not wasting his breath on more fruitless shouts, but the paint on the sole of his shoe made for poor traction. One leg skewed out from underneath him and he made a few scrambling steps before he caught his bearings, then pushed off from the floor with one hand and charged after him. His target was already halfway to the tree line and pulling away quickly by the time he’d reached the balcony. This shouldn’t have been any contest, but it was quickly turning into a farce of a chase, like a fox trying to outrun a hare that was armed with paint bombs to keep its pursuer’s traction down.  
“We’ll see about that,” he huffed as he hiked himself over the rail in one smooth motion, absorbed the landing with a deep crouch, and took off again.

The mansion wasn’t close enough to the lakefront that he could see it at a distance, with all the bands of trees between them, but he could tell where Fleur was headed- the northwest-facing property put the backside exits pointing southeast toward Lake Saint Clair.  
His target knew the area well enough that he didn’t even slow as he turned to glance over his shoulder, then took a sharp left turn into the tree line off the stone path. The road was well-trodden but unpaved, and he was running _barefoot_ through god knew what; but whatever grit and sticks might have been poking into his feet didn’t appear to slow Fleur down.  
For a moment Trev thought he’d lost sight of him until a particularly loud crack of blue lit up the sky and traced a form moving through the trees to his right.  
“Got you! Come _here, you bloody_…!”

In the middle of nowhere among the foliage were several rope and tire swings, a stone fire pit, and two wooden park benches that looked like they’d been there a while...  
But no Fleur.  
Langley paused momentarily in the clearing, only to be blindsided from above by another balloon full of orange paint, now coloring his right thigh. With a protesting groan of “_Oh, come on!_”, he lunged for the boy as he dropped from his perch on the rope-swing platform and managed to snag a handful of his sweater before yanking him back in his direction. Fleur took an off-balance slide in the dirt with a wild look and bumped into him shoulder-to-chest, as Trev reached into the pockets of his cardigan and pulled out three pieces of ammunition with a triumphant “_HA_!”  
But he only smiled back with a devilish grin as a crack of red and white light illuminated the area with successive loud booms.  
“Hey now, aren’t you coming on a little _strong_?” he teased as he reached into one of the inner pockets.  
“Well, I’m not about to stick my hand down your _trousers_ to see if-”  
A handful of bright green paint slapped across his cheek while he was only halfway through his snarking, leaving him furiously gawking for a moment long enough for his prey to escape, laughing all the way.  
Somehow, he felt like the supercilious hare going after the cunning fox, not the other way around.

It only took a few seconds for his aim to calibrate the weight of the paint balloon, and calculate the trajectory and speed necessary to hit him at a distance, but when he’d finished he wound up like a major league ball-player and pitched it as hard as he could- successfully clipping Fleur’s arm in bright red paint. It wasn’t a direct hit, but he _was_ trying to throw around all those sneaky trees.  
_Finally_, he had made his mark, and with Trev now holding the majority of what remained of the paint bombs, it meant _he_ had the advantage. The hunt was on.

Another couple minutes of running beneath an increasing amount of fireworks popping off overhead yielded another brief victory resulting from a misstep on (_who by now he was pretty confident was_) Dylan’s part. In the darkening twilight, in between bursts of flashing light, the maintenance shed managed to sneak up on him. Wide eyes turned to look for his pursuer but spotted him a moment too late. A balloon overfilled with white paint burst open with a particularly large splash, drenching his right hip in white gesso.  
“And _that’s_ for my suit!” Trevor shouted in vengeful victory; but just when he thought he’d won, Fleur threw his head back against the hollow shed with a soft, clanging _thud_ and let out a rolling laugh. Dumbstruck as he was by his behavior (_because being covered in paint didn’t seem to bother him at all_), he was quickly learning that this was typical of him. In fact, if Trev didn’t know any better, the way he smiled looked like he was saying ‘_This is exactly what I wanted_’.  
Too distracted by the nuance, if only for a moment, Trev didn’t even notice as Dylan slipped away and chucked one of the smaller balloons still in his pockets, and matched his last hit with a small splash of blue on his hip.  
“How many of these things do you _HAVE_!?” he half-shrieked in dismay as Dylan sprinted toward the lake, and began the chase anew.

Ten minutes and another shot to his left leg after they’d started, and Trev was about ready to admit defeat and call it quits; but by now they were so far from the house and so deep in the woods, he couldn’t tell which way would lead back. Even if his internal map of the property had updated the further on they went, like the unexplored canvas of an open-world adventure game, there were still too many blank spots to get lost in. And he would rather not have Dennis have to assemble a search party to come find them; he hated being the center of anyone’s attention enough as it was.  
Heedless of their antics, the fireworks show launched into its third, loudest, most explosive phase yet. Wherever they were shooting them off from, it sounded close. He could hear the shrill whizzing, screaming, and shrieking of each payload as they propelled into the sky, and felt the explosive percussive blasts in his chest cavity like an uncomfortable pressure in his gut.

Only so much of the bursts of light from the fireworks illuminated the undergrowth beneath the elms and oaks, but it was just enough for him to notice Fleur’s footprints had disappeared from the path. The tracks came to an abrupt halt after a sharp right off the trail, as if he had grown wings. In addition to being nimble and quick, it seemed he was also stealthy enough to get the drop on him, quite literally.  
Langley figured out where Dylan had gone (_or rather, not gone_) a second too late.  
Trevor barely had time to brace himself as the boy leaped from his perch in the tree above and tackled him to the ground. Wrestling for several moments just to get a grip on the squirrely foe, he finally rolled him over onto his back and gripped both hands in as many layers of clothing as he could, stood, and hurled him back toward the beaten path, harder than intended. For being so observant, he’d failed to account for how light Dylan was.  
The boy flew further and longer than he’d anticipated, arms and legs flailing almost comically as he tried to flip himself so he wouldn’t land on his head. His back and shoulders took the brunt of the landing, momentum absorbed by the damp soil as he hit, but he just took it in stride with a tuck and roll and sprinted along the lakeshore.

Much to his dismay. It was _unbelievable_ that he was _still_ running. _How_ could he have so much stamina when he looked like he only ate enough to keep his family off his back?  
With a long, tired sigh, Trev wound up with the last balloon he had, and threw it right at the back of his head, hitting him with enough force that it knocked Fleur clean off his feet. A stumbling face-first trip into the damp grass and sandy dirt of the marshy lakefront was all it took for him to decide he was finally too tired to continue. So instead of getting back up, he lay giggling on the ground for a few moments.  
But at least he hadn’t been hit by a rubber band or paint balloon in almost two whole minutes.

“_Now_ will you please leave me be...?” Trev whined after him. “I just - ugh.” Now that he didn’t have to worry about any surprise attacks, he took a moment to absorb the disheveled state he was in. Between the mud on his shoes, the paint streaks over his body gummed up with bits of leaves and shredded rubber, and the half-covered lenses of his glasses, it all added up to one conclusion: he was a hot mess, but that wasn’t really news. The only difference was, the outside now matched the inside.  
Trevor frowned. “This is terrible. You’ve ruined my only suit.”  
“Nah, it looks way better than it did when you got here...” Dylan joked with a beaming smile as he rolled over, sat up and ran a hand through the back of his hair to fling free as much of the dirt and paint as he possibly could.  
Too mentally and emotionally exhausted at the moment to protest, Trev caved and plopped down next to him on the beach.  
“That shit’s acrylic, it’ll wash out with water,” the freckled imp explained, gesturing to the lake as he leaned forward over bent knees, pulled a hard-earned cigarette from behind his ear, and lit it.  
Already Trev had started to paw and scratch at the green paint drying onto his jaw with a grimace. Beneath it was a cool tingling sensation, as his projected skin hadn’t yet reformed from the trauma of the impact.  
“C’mon… you really _still wish_ you would have stayed inside? You’ve finally loosened up a little,” he scoffed and mumbled with the cigarette between his lips as he capped the lighter, then looked over at him with a small sigh and an expectant look.  
The faint cloud of smoke that puffed into his face stung his eyes and nose, but he cringed for another reason. Trev held his breath until it had passed before answering with a hearty dose of sarcasm. “It didn’t loosen anything up. If anything, I’m in an even _better_ mood than I was before, only thanks to - oh, _come on_, it can’t have dried that fast!”  
The sarcasm gave way to real dismay. He rubbed at the bigger smear covering one eye and left an impressive track along the side of his face, though didn’t make any real progress to clean off any of it. The thought rankled instantly. “Are you happy now, then? Got what you were looking for?”  
“Yeah, actually,” Fleur confirmed as he tapped at the end of the cigarette and folded one arm over his knee, then directed a big grin his way. “You know- you’re not bad for a stick in the mud.”

The sun was gone. The fireworks hadn’t stopped, they’d only changed in location- now instead of them launching from the Fleur estate, they’d begun firing off on the other side of the lake’s impressive horizon. For a few quiet minutes, they sat and watched the faraway spectacle, until Dylan brought up a sore subject, unintentionally.  
“Guess I should’ve figured you were an android if you came with Den and Dahlia.”  
To anyone else it was a casual enough observation. These days it tended to matter who was what just as much as it didn’t. Trev wasn’t so political about it as others were, owing to his seemingly-unique situation. Their opinions didn’t line up with his, but as much as it felt like the case most days (_being an anomaly_), he hated to think he was the _only_ android who had ever been fooled so completely for so long.  
Nevertheless, daily reminders were bad enough without someone putting it into words. He cringed again as the skin projection finally dialed in on the missing portion along his jaw, feeling a faint spreading of warmth as the false epidermis melted back into place. It gave him away, if nothing else had up until this point.  
“Great. Just when I was starting to fool myself into thinking it wasn’t true all over again...” he muttered under his breath as he tried to unbutton a loose cufflink and use it to scrape more paint out from under his eye, only taking his glasses off as an afterthought when he realized they were in the way.  
A look of pure confusion crossed his company’s face. “Sorry- what? _Fool yourself_?”  
He dodged the need to answer that with another slightly-ridiculing question. “And so long as we’re comparing, what does that make you? Some kind of - French-African type?”  
The redhead’s smile faded just a little, and he rolled his eyes. “Take it easy... alright?” There was a real gentleness in his eyes as he looked at him and reassured. “Doesn’t matter to me either way _what_ you are, I just wasn’t aware of it.”  
“And there you have discovered my reasoning for wanting to be left alone. Bravo.” After everything he’d endured since arriving at the Fleur’s estate that evening, he wasn’t exactly in a frame of mind to be placated by that. Trev took another dig at the caked-on acrylic, and his skin receded like water being pressed out from under a sheet of paper. “I don’t want to talk about it, to you or anyone else, understand?”  
“Fine, I get it- I won’t ask,” he replied, apparently un-insulted by his curtness. Of the small handful of redeeming qualities he’d discovered thus far, this was one of them. It was _extremely_ hard to offend him, though it was proving to be more of a curse than a blessing.  
Just when he thought he was safe, Dylan took one last balloon out of his pocket and smashed it over the back of Trev’s head with a couple of fond pats to his shoulder before laying down in the dirt. Instead of wasting energy on a hapless wail, Trev sighed deeply and lulled his eyes shut to brood.

Another silence passed between them, though that time it was just a little more comfortable, as opposed to tense and awkward. Instead of prodding further, Dylan had _actually_ made true on his word not to ask; in spite of what he may have thought about the boy, it was one more small thing to be grateful for.  
“So, what’s your story…?” Fleur asked after about ten minutes of watching the distant fireworks and listening to the humming and chirping of insects in the night. “I mean-“ He paused mid-thought to tap the butt of his cigarette and knock the ashes into the dirt on the other side of him. “How’d you end up _here_, with Detective Lenore?”

It wasn’t as much of a change in topic as he would have liked, but it was just enough. Trevor hesitated to answer, but Dylan’s silence as he took another drag on the cig was as insisting as asking the question over and over, without being as demanding. Trevor drew his knees to his chest looked away as he fidgeted and leaned over them. As much as he had kept to himself over the last few months, the desire to talk to someone about his trauma eventually overcame the shyness.  
It was more than most in the academy had bothered to do. Keeping everything to himself hadn’t exactly discouraged developing a reputation as a misanthrope. Appealing as it once sounded, the more time went by and he realized he missed people as he once knew them, that want had to win out somewhere.  
Besides- by the looks of him, it appeared Dylan Fleur wasn’t that far off from a kindred spirit.  
Trev stopped fidgeting after considering the offer to speak freely a little longer, then slid the paint-spotted glasses back on. “I’m from… out east. _Boston_.”  
One word there sufficed to explain the where and why of the equation in a single breath. If Dylan was really stuck on the idea of getting to know him, he’d have to work harder. “It’s where I met Detective Lenore. He found me- wandering the streets, trying to get out as they were… headed in. I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. He clocked me over the head and handcuffed me to a water main behind a laundromat for safekeeping. They found me again after Nicodemus was arrested. The rest is… well, here I am.”

His company froze visibly, stared at the horizon and held his breath for a moment longer than planned before he turned and exhaled the smoke in the opposite direction.  
It hadn’t quite been six months since the Horsemen -a violent group of android supremacists- had rolled up on the unsuspecting city of Boston and turned it into hell on earth overnight. For two weeks they’d held the city and all its inhabitants hostage under threat of nuclear detonation in the form of a dirty bomb that would have killed all human inhabitants and left _Purgatory_ to the Androids. Nicodemus and his Horsemen had eventually been taken down by Archangel brass (_with the help of one rogue RK900_), but it was only _after_ the military’s efforts to save the city had resulted in the deaths of nearly a thousand people, humans and androids alike. It was considered a national tragedy and had again fanned the flames of prejudice spread by gangs like the Watchdogs (_human supremacists, hell-bent on making sure the line between human and android remained defined_). Clearly, it wasn’t the answer he was expecting, but it sure explained a lot.  
To his credit, Dylan didn’t divert from the heaviness of the subject right away. One dark, freckled hand lifted to run through the longer lengths of hair as he turned back to him and grimaced sympathetically. “You were _there…? Fuck_… I’m really sorry...”  
His response was more genuine than Trev had expected from the family misanthrope. But then again, based on the way his family had been talking about him, he’d assumed little more than to expect nothing short of a spoiled brat. So far, though, Dylan was proving to be the opposite. Impish _did_ describe him well, but so did kind.  
“Sorry’s not your name, either,” Trev muttered in a muted, underwhelmed tone, arms folded once again. The weak impulse to joke, he couldn’t quite rise to; just as well, Dylan didn’t take him up on that.  
“Look- say no more, y’don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he assured as he put his mostly-spent cigarette out in the dirt, stood and waded into the water up to his knees. The cardigan came off, followed by his shirt, revealing several tattoos in addition to the branches wrapping around his right wrist and thumb- across his shoulders and the back of his neck was a lotus flower, the petals spreading out and around the sides of his neck in inky black brush strokes. The other, on his upper left arm, an ornate floral piece, and an hourglass on the underside close to his body; all of them were in black and white, and still a few years fresh, no greening or bleeding of the ink to indicate their relative age. It seemed he wasn’t afraid of a little pain if he was willing to sit long enough to have such detailed work done.

“So, what’s your name?” came the question as he stooped down to rinse the paint off his shirt, then wadded it up into a sopping heap and scrubbed at his jeans with it to remove as much of the white paint as he could.  
Trev attempted to wipe some out of one eye, but only smeared the coagulating mess back above his ear in an unintentional homage to Nicodemus’ bullet. He could still feel the furrow in the panels there, even if it wasn’t visible with the skin projection running.  
“Trevor,” he replied, a little less annoyed than before, even with paint gunking up his hair and sticking to his fake skin.  
“... That’s it? Didn’t Dennis call you somethin’ else?”  
“_Langley_,” he added as a begrudging afterthought. No use in hiding such a crucial detail if it had already been revealed once. “And you are?”  
“What- you mean you didn’t hear my name bein’ thrown around by my disappointed family?” he teased with a quiet smirk thrown over his shoulder. “It’s Dylan. Fleur. _Unfortunately_.”

It was true- their response to his absence was nothing short of exasperation, borderline apathy, and irritation, but Trev knew that giving someone the chance to introduce themselves, apart from what others had said of them, was key to understanding them. Archangel had afforded him the same courtesy once they had gotten back to Detroit. “You were clearly intent on doing something else tonight,” he noted instead, elbows propped on his knees, eyeing him warily from his spot on the ground.  
Dylan nodded and gave a crooked shrug. “What can I say? I got tired of big dinners and parties a long time ago.”  
Trev squinted, tilting his head so as to look out from behind sullied lenses. “Why?” he persisted, curious rather than judging. “Aren’t you one of them?” It kind of defeated the point of family to separate oneself from the pack.  
Dylan stopped from scrubbing the last of the paint off his pants and half turned toward him in deep consideration. It was clearly a loaded question with a multifaceted answer that he wasn’t yet willing to give.  
As he slung his shirt over his shoulder, he reached for the sweater that was still floating in the water a foot behind him, rolled his eyes and shrugged. Trevor knew a sore subject when he saw one, so he dropped it. Seemed they were both a study in living removed.  
“Forget I asked, then.”  
“It’s a long and boring story,” Fleur replied dismissively as he rubbed the pink paint off his face with the dripping wet sweater. The bright color transferred to the cotton fabric in a wide swath, leaving a slightly opaque layer smeared across his cheek until he swiped a clean sleeve over it again.  
“So boring, you’re carrying around balloons full of paint for laughs?”  
Dylan scoffed, popped his brows and shook his head as he dunked the cardigan in the water again to wash out the paint. “_No_\- I was getting ready to do something else when you found me, but this sounded more fun.”  
Naturally, that only raised more questions than it answered. What purpose would water balloons filled with paint _possibly_ serve, if not to be thrown at other people...?  
“By the way,” he added as he lifted the sweater out of the water, still sopping wet, and hurled it at him. Trevor jumped as it slapped over his face with a loud, hollow _PLOP_ and pushed his glasses uncomfortably high up on his nose.  
“You should wash up before it dries.”

Trev tugged the wet fabric free with a grudging groan, but took his advice and started scrubbing at the paint on his cheeks. Most of the lighter streaks were easily saturated and wiped from existence. On a whim of a program recommendation, he sampled the substance out of curiosity and determined it was exactly what Dylan claimed. The molecular formula ghosted across his vision to add itself to the pile of data still compiling. His company snorted in amusement at the sight of him licking paint off his finger, not at all subtle in calling attention to it.  
“You can’t get high off that shit, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Dylan teased, then bent forward to submerse his hair in the water. Hands rubbed vigorously at his head for a few seconds before he whipped it back and pushed as much of the water as he could out of the thick mop of auburn red.  
“How far out here are we, anyway?” Trev asked in idle thought, rubbing the glasses between the folds of the sweater as he looked out over the lake at the last fireworks going off in the distance.  
Dylan shook the water out of his hair and wrung out his shirt as best he could, then pulled it back on and ran his hands through his hair in a futile attempt to push it out of his face. “Far enough that no one would hear you scream.”  
It was a joke. Obviously. But he delivered it with such deadpan finality Trev couldn’t help a bemused pause, eyebrows hiked up in mixed skepticism and concern.  
_Scream? Because…?_  
The look said this plainly enough without him putting it to words.

The devilish smile returned to its rightful place below squinting green eyes as the boy stepped out of the water and stopped beside him, reaching down to take back his cardigan. “_Relax_, I’m only half kidding…”  
Again with the comical vagueness.  
Trev didn’t smile back through bent, paint encrusted eyebrows. The suit was still a wreck, but at least his face was mostly clean again. He indulged in one last wipe across the brow with the improvised rag as best he could and handed it back.  
“About which part…?”  
Dylan sighed and rolled his eyes, draped the cardigan over his shoulder, and extended a hand in an amicable offer to help him stand, but Trev just leaned back and eyed him warily. “Don’t you wanna get out of those clothes and clean up?”  
As badly as he did, to fuss and bemoan over his current appearance wouldn’t do. Even after an impulsively-sparked, borderline-foolhardy chase, he wanted more to pretend he had retained some kind of composure, a stab at maintaining a shred of dignity. Other than that, it wasn’t as though he had another set of clothes readily available.  
“It can wait until we get back.” Trev pushed off the ground and grabbed his outstretched hand in the same movement, as Dylan leaned back and helped him up. “I’m not about to go wading and end up smelling of lake silt.”  
“There are worse things to smell like,” his for-better-or-worse company mused as he slipped his hands into his pockets and turned up the path back toward the mansion. It was a clear enough trail, even if at a walk it would still take them a quarter-hour to return. “But that’s what showers are for- first you live a little, then you deal with the mess later.”  
There it was again, Dennis’ sage advice about getting out to experience what chaos existed beyond the walls of the academy dorms. Right about now -as he trekked back in muddy, slippery loafers- Trev missed the clean, orderly nature of the place.  
Langley rolled his eyes, out of sight as he was following Fleur’s lead, and avoided mentioning what a mess Boston had turned into. And how, prior to that, he thought that lie of a life was all he needed.  
“Detective Lenore is still not going to be happy with the state I’m in, half clean or not.”  
He laughed, in a way that spoke of how little he cared. “Yeah? Well, if he isn’t, he can eat my ass. He knew what was coming, and he practically _endorsed it_.”  
The flagrant disregard with which he said it made Trev’s impression of him do a slight flip-flop. On the one hand, Dylan was obviously more perceptive and sensitive than he led others to believe; on the other, it was because of such nose-thumbing the rest of the family probably found him so tiresome, and therefore regarded as a lost cause. But in the most cursory of ways, Trev simply found the use of vulgarity annoying.  
“Be that as it may. There’s no need to be crude about it.”  
“You’re right, there isn’t.” The agreement came without explanation or apology, and the way he smirked as his voice trailed off said all he needed to let him know he couldn’t care less about how he was perceived.

They walked on in silence for a minute more before Dylan thoughtfully asked, “Do you miss it…? Boston, I mean, not _Purgatory_…”  
Purgatory seemed like less of a place and more of an event the country would just as soon forget. Even if those files could be selectively deleted, Trev didn’t fancy letting go of them. Without that reference how was anything now supposed to make sense?  
The rapid-fire slideshow played over his retinas again, but instead of focusing on any one frame too long, he tried to shrug off the resulting discomfort; whether it had resulted from this train of thought or the chaffing of the paint-saturated fabric was hard to tell.  
Regardless, how interested could Fleur _actually_ be?

“Sometimes- there are fewer boats here, obviously.” The bustling Boston harbor made the Detroit River look like a carnival ride of a channel. “And I probably won’t miss the winters. Although Detroit isn’t much better on that front, is it?”  
“It’s worse,” Fleur chuckled with a quiet grin. “Guess you haven’t heard about the ice storms and freezing rain… make sure you get a thick coat, it gets so bad it’ll freeze even an android’s joints.”  
Trev stomached the reminder with only another shrug and batted a thin branch out of his way as they turned a corner along the path. “Boston has the same issue, only here it’s lake effect snow you have to worry about. You’re sooner to get buried in and freeze if your car breaks down.” He hadn’t spent all that time shut in simply not doing any research. Both cities were at the same given latitude. “By what I’ve heard the spring thaw came early this year, though…”  
In a manner of speaking.

One near-silent minute later, he blinked down at his company, who had stopped to stare with an exhausted grin. “What?”  
“I’m sorry, but- are we _really_ doing this…?” Dylan stopped, held up a hand, then covered his face and laughed under his breath.  
“Doing what?” Trev scowled, ever so slightly, not seeing the humor in a simple discussion about the weather…  
Until he did and slowed to a stop just a couple steps ahead of him. The hardness in his brow dissipated. “_Oh_.” It seemed it wasn’t as easy to derail uncomfortable conversations with this one unless he outright stated he didn’t want to talk about something.  
“I mean- I’m glad you’re talkin’, Trev, but the weather…? _Really_?”  
Meteorology was the one subject most near-strangers went for when they weren’t quite sure what should and shouldn’t be touched on. The more benignly, the better.  
But it was the former half of that statement that set him on edge all over again. “You’re _glad_? What difference does it make to you that I don’t care to discuss much else?” The last time he was so familiar with anyone it turned out to be a sham, and he wasn’t eager to relive it in any capacity.  
The man sighed deeply and rolled his eyes again. “Because being a killjoy is no fun, and the weather is _boring_, but you’re the most interesting person I’ve laid eyes on all day. Is it really _so bad_ to just want a little social interaction that doesn’t lead into a lecture about _god knows what_…?”  
Interesting didn’t always necessarily mean good for getting to know. In hindsight, Trev could see so many occasions in which he might have strayed and wondered, had Spencer not kept him on task and none the wiser. He missed that arrangement more than the city itself, that steady presence, and as yet Dylan Fleur was at best a fifteen percent match to Langley’s former partner.  
Of course, it would mean looking at compatibility issues, front and center. Dylan hadn’t the first clue at what an inner wreck lay under the hood; but as of yet, he didn’t need to know, either. It was safer for everyone if they just left it alone. Time to reiterate that.  
“I’m afraid all I’ve got are amended lectures at the moment. The rest is too much to go into, like I said. Would you care for it if I started picking your brain apart just as thoroughly?”  
“Who said y’had to tell your story?”

The look on his face bore no hint of playfulness so he’d get the message across loud and clear, and boy _did he_. When he really wanted to, Fleur could be downright convincing, and genuine, contrary as it seemed. It wasn’t as tiring trying to keep up, but it was a little jarring how easily he could switch between carelessness and seriousness in the blink of an eye.  
“Didn’t I say I wouldn’t ask…?” Dylan turned on heel in front of him and took a couple of steps back, holding up his arms and lifting his brows. “I get the feeling you’re not too practiced in conversing for the sake of entertainment, ‘cause there’s plenty more we can talk about without rippin’ open old wounds- like why the hell you decided to wear a suit to one of the most casual holiday parties of the year,” he gestured with a teasing grin.  
Trevor shuffled his feet and crossed his arms, glanced down and tapped a toe into the dirt to hide the embarrassment in his expression. Admitting he didn’t own any respectable clothes besides his cadet duds was yet another confession he’d sooner avoid. How had he not grown tired of hearing what he _didn’t want to_ talk about yet?  
“Hey-” One hand reached out to give a soft pat on Langley’s upper arm, and he flinched back instinctively. Touches of that nature were not his preference, either. “You wanna know what I was _really_ doing with all those balloons before you showed up? C’mon...”  
Hitting something with them would be the logical assumption. And given what acrylic was meant to do, color and cover in equal measure, it wasn’t a stretch to parlay _something_ into _someone_.  
All in all, Dylan appeared to have gotten some enjoyment out of it.  
Good for him.


	3. Collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rocky introduction leads to the beginnings of an unexpected mutual understanding, and an unlikely friendship more welcomed by one than the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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**July 4th, 2041 - 9:18 PM**

The remainder of the trek back to the house was surprisingly short. Compared to the winding, off-road path their chase had taken through the trees, this road they traveled was a straight shot with only a few gentle curves right, left, and another slight left. It ended almost right back where they’d started- the trees opened up to a hill that sloped down toward the house, where the balcony stairs led up to the studio. Now that he had a moment and wasn’t just blindly running away from the house, he noticed that a grotto has been carved into the slope of the hill below the veranda, and made into a nook furnished with several lounge chairs and a few stone fireplaces for illumination and warmth. Small, open archway entrances on either side ruined the potential for complete privacy, but with the hill blocking the view at a distance, it seemed like the kind of space he’d like to pass the time in.  
Dylan trotted up the staircase while skipping two steps with each stride, draped his soiled cardigan and shirt over the banister, entered the house barefoot and shirtless, then grabbed another sleeveless cardigan off the back of a chair and threw it on without stopping.  
Trev crept in behind him with his hands in his pockets while minding the globs of paint on the floor that were still a little wet (_even after nearly an hour’s drying time_), then stopped to examine the room. It was exactly as he’d glimpsed the first time through, more of a studio to work in than a chamber to rest, even if the couch in the far-right corner from where he was standing (_which was covered in blankets_) said otherwise. The beamed, vaulted ceilings framed out to beige and walnut walls, otherwise covered in abstract impressionist paintings, displayed whatever work-in-progress charcoal sketches he’d been working on in his spare time. There were at least three tables, each home to a different art medium, the perimeter dotted with cloth-covered easels. A number of empty paint cans held dozens of broken-in paintbrushes among other drawing tools. A large, plastic tarp had been strung up behind the largest canvas to the left, protecting the wall behind. The fourth wall, the closest to his right, was taken up by a brick oven, a tabletop anvil, a metalworking workbench, and a _pottery wheel_, of all things.  
Stacks of books littered the floor, handfuls of canvases leaned against the walls, piles of assorted paint cans were arranged in small caches beneath the tables, on shelving, or stored in cabinetry like the one in the middle of the room blocking a trapdoor leading to the room beneath it. In the back-right corner (_on the other end of the couch_) was a deep, well-loved stainless-steel sink spotted with countless layers of dried pigments that had never quite washed off. The last thing he noticed was a ten-gallon aquarium filled with greenery and scratchy substrate, resting on a table in the back-left corner of the room next to the door; what it could have housed was a mystery, because the animal wasn't present.  
Altogether this was clearly the space of someone who spent a lot of their time trying to find their muse, and it was by _no means_ a cheap vocation. The many paint cans alone ran into the hundreds of dollars, budget wise, but the clue that most interested Trev sat opened on one of the tables: a ripped plastic bag, still half full of unfilled water balloons, next to an old paint encrusted funnel- also known as an ammo dump, in tonight’s case.  
_Lovely_.

Langley feigned rubbing at his chin to hide a reflexive twitch. Surrounded by this breadth of creative thought brought to inanimate life made him realize how foreign it all was. He felt more like the outsider here than at any time prior this evening. “If this is the part where I state the obvious... I’ll skip it, if you prefer.”  
But Dylan said nothing of the sort. “What _I’d_ prefer…? Or what _you’d_ prefer?” His tone piqued from around the corner of the wall dividing the side of the room to Trevor’s right, and he glanced up from digging around in a laundry basket to flash him a friendly grin. “Cause I’d prefer you say what’s on your mind.”  
Fleur tossed him a white V-neck top and a pair of black joggers as he passed on his way across the room, presumably to give him the space to change, at which Trev had only hesitated long enough to be reasonably sure he wasn’t being watched. When he was satisfied that he was _not_, Langley slipped the slacks and jacket off, meticulously folded them both, and briefly inspected the top beneath before he took it off and decided to bag it as well. If he was going to change into something clean and dry, he might as well have gone the whole nine yards. All the while, he thought on his reply. Dylan probably expected him to disclose something in return, but what was more benign than talking about the weather?

“What’s on my mind is how much I prefer _not_ to say what’s on my mind,” he replied idly as he pulled the shirt on over his head and fruitlessly tried to finger-comb his gummed-up hair back into something neat so it wasn’t sticking out at such odd angles. “I was only going to say your space suits you. Obvious as it gets, right?”  
“Obvious? Or observational?” Dylan countered as he fussed with the canvas tarp over a six-foot square canvas against the opposite side of the room, unfolded the corners and pulled them out from under the wooden frame. When he put it that way, Trev supposed, one adjective _did_ sound more negative than the other. “Regardless,” he paused just long enough to grab two fistfuls of the canvas tarp, then yanked; the fabric fluttered through the air and settled onto the ground beside him in a huge heap. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” he asked with a smile as Trev stopped beside him to examine the piece.

Removing the cover revealed a painting obscured by a few random splotches of paint deposited by the impact of water balloons, a sensation which he had been _intimately_ introduced to that night. Even with chunks of the painting covered by mostly opaque layers of gesso, he could see what it was supposed to be: a man doubled over, hugging himself, fingers rending deep, clawed cuts into the skin of his ribs, the punctures leaking inky black shadows rather than life-giving crimson. The face had been turned away from the viewer, intentionally left obscured against a foggy, muddled backdrop of red, black, and gray. It was certainly a far cry from the hyper-realistic portrait hanging just outside the room- the erratic, emotionally charged brushstrokes, vivid colors, and sharp contrast of this piece were much more in line with what he’d expected after hearing about Dylan Fleur from his family members. The style was every bit as edgy and eccentric as he.  
“Do you make art or war with it?” he murmured as he approached, still distracted by the thought that the painting may have been a self-portrait. He could hear Dylan scoff as another stray balloon hit one corner of the canvas and splashed a clashing layer of green over the top of an existing spot. Trev flinched ever so slightly as it splattered just a few feet away; the movement reminded him to blink, not stare in such overt confusion. “What’s this supposed to be?”  
“Another failure, like me,” Dylan half joked as he wandered away to find dry pants. With no reason to follow, Trev stayed where he was and gave the piece another slow look over. It counted as evidence of _something_\- the act of depicting what he could only interpret as some sort of inner turmoil, rather than keeping it bottled up in one’s head, was a tried-and-true coping mechanism, but not something he himself could relate to. Trevor’s closest comparison was having a department sketch artist work with a witness to a crime to recall facial features and distinguishing characteristics of a person of interest, which was similar in its intent only to identify the concept _of_ someone.

“Only failure I’m seeing here are the new stains you added.” Tempting as it was to reach out and try wiping the unsightly green off the defaced piece, Trev contented himself with working out another stubborn flake of yellow clinging to his hair. “I mean, it wasn’t finished yet, was it?”  
“It was, but I didn’t like it anymore, I’m gonna start over with something different,” he explained, then added as an afterthought with a frown after checking a grouping of paint cans on the floor under the coffee table. “Gotta go buy more acrylic gesso before I can, though.”  
“And this is why you had balloons filled with paint? You were going to _trash it_?”  
“You almost sound offended,” Dylan teased, noting the way his brows lifted in reserved judgment at the idea.  
Trevor cast a corrective, brown-eyed glance at him, but stopped short when Dylan met it with a disarming smile. “I’m not, I just-... don’t understand why you’d put so much effort into creating something, only to destroy it.”  
“It’s common practice for artists to recycle canvases when they get sick of looking at old pieces and don’t want to stretch a new one,” Fleur explained in his most educational tone as he crossed his arms and turned to step toward him. “It might have been therapeutic to paint this at the time, but I’m ready to move on from what inspired it.”  
“And what was that?”  
Dylan swallowed the answer to that question; apparently, he hadn’t earned the right to know yet, but he was perfectly fine with that. It was just one less reason to get attached. Instead, the boy ventured another risk, his voice weaker with a hint of melancholy. “Can’t you feel it…?”  
Trevor clenched his teeth and shot him a sharp look, not in the mood for a guessing game. “You’re the one who painted it- so you tell _me_.”  
“I could, but that would defeat the purpose of painting it.”  
For a moment he gazed at the painting and seemed to lose himself in the feelings it evoked, feelings that were readable on his face clear as day, even if he didn’t want to see it.  
“Art is a wordless form of communication that makes it a hell of a lot easier to explain thoughts you might otherwise had a hard time articulating,” he explained with a sideways glance in his direction; already, Trev could feel the prickling sensation in the back of his mind, and he didn’t like it. “Why tell what you can show?”

Trev scowled, more obviously this time. He _could_ feel it, all too vividly, and he didn’t want to. _That was the problem_. It wasn’t the painting itself or who its artist was, it was the similarities of the imagery and the read-into meanings that hit too close to home for comfort. It was anguish if he’d ever felt it (_and he had, after he’d lost everything he’d ever known to the rise of Purgatory, the day that Boston fell_), and a deep desire to cut oneself open to bleed it out just to feel the release the bloodletting would deliver. It was dark, unnerving, and passively comforting to know they shared this common pain.  
And that was _exactly_ why he refused to answer him.  
“Thing about art is, it’s not always meant to be permanent,” Dylan continued, undeterred at his audience’s voluntary silence. “Sometimes it’s transient, transformative- like pain.”  
“So, you’re saying that art is pain?” It was a suitable comparison, considering the subject matter of this particular piece, and just enough of a diversion away from the uncomfortable subject to merit a response.  
“Sometimes… yes,” Fleur answered thoughtfully, his green-eyed gaze too transfixed to pay him any mind as Trev eyed the ink on his skin one more time and took a closer look at the flowers on his left arm. In the case of tattoos, it was _more_ than sometimes.  
“Why bother with it, then?” he asked, genuinely confounded by the contradiction.  
“Compulsion,” he stated plain and simple as he closed his eyes, shook his head, and lowered his chin. “The pain I suffer when I _don’t_ create is often _worse_ than briefly facing it to scream it onto the page.”  
“If you say so.”

Much as he detested the urge to, Trev could relate. It was very tempting to go sour at the thought of someone at Cyberlife thinking to get creative enough to the point they would try to dupe one of their products (_i.e., himself_) into thinking it was the real flesh-and-blood deal. Had he the pleasure of making that person’s acquaintance, it would not have been a peaceable meeting of minds. To equate it to Dylan’s example, he was the canvas upon which something new had been redrawn. Then that second layer had been unceremoniously torn off, like garish wallpaper stripped away to reveal the bare panels underneath. No one ever asked the paper if it wanted to be removed, was the only difference. Far as it was concerned, who knew if it had simply been content as it was?

Not a fan of the phantom ache that seemed to settle in between his ears, Trev shut his eyes to scratch at the leftover paint flakes above one ear. The oldest spot was turning stiff, and therefore itchy. “You sound a lot like your- sisters,” he commented, cracking an eye open once the scratching was done. “No coincidence, I’m sure.”  
Dylan attempted a faltering smile that spoke loudly of insecurity and he turned toward one of the tables covered in brush cans, and swiped up a chunk of brush soap. “If that were true, I’d be better off,” he mused morbidly as he returned to his side and reached for the worst of the clumps in his hair. “But I’ll take that as a compliment, ‘cause they’re the best people I know, even if they can be a little...”  
Trev smacked away his hand when he reached up to try and help get the paint out of his hair. He thought he had made it clear that with their game over, he wasn’t of a mind to be touched, but Fleur just chuckled in response and tossed him the soap and a comb before taking a step back.  
“..._overbearing_.”  
“You know a touch of that yourself,” the android countered with a grumble. “All the earnestness of you three combined…” He let the words hang unfinished and tried running the bristles into his hair, wincing as they stuck against the clumps before eventually pulling through with enough force applied.  
“It’s contagious in this family,” Dylan joked with a short laugh as he busied himself with filling a bucket with hot, soapy water and finding a couple of sponges. “Can’t really help treating everyone else the same ‘til I know their boundaries.”

_Boundaries_. Trevor nearly snorted. If he’d really given a shit about those, he wouldn’t be wearing his loaned clothes and scraping paint out of his hair. If this was how Dylan treated _family_, then he actually felt sorry for Dahlia and Rhea.  
“My classmates rarely say hello to me outside of courses, yet here’s a whole evening full of _coddling_ people to make up for it. _Ugh_.” He didn’t mean to sound ungrateful; it was just his reality. Even the instructors tended to give him a wide berth- with no official report delivered accounting for who he was, he supposed he couldn’t fault them for being leery of what they didn’t know, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt some days.  
“What are you, then...?” he diverted, after a brief pause. “A student, or a hobbyist?”  
“Third-year fine arts at Cranbrook Academy of Arts,” Dylan replied as he knelt to wipe as much of the paint off the floor as he could with some dry rags, then followed up with a wet sponge. “I do my schoolwork from home and video call to talk to my professors or participate in classes when I need to.”

Another clue to file away in the growing dossier, one that sufficed to explain why he was such a homebody.  
The sight of him cleaning his own floors gave Trevor pause. If he’d grown up in a house this size, with a plethora of servants to do the work for him, wouldn’t it be logical for him to leave the mess for one of them to clean up? Yet here he was, humbling himself to scrub paint off the hardwood, already damaged by years of splashed oil and turpentine.  
“And when you’re not doing all that…? Pranks are it?”  
“Pranks are reserved for special occasions, and special _people_…” Dylan insisted as he crawled from one partial shoeprint to the next, dragging the bucket with him. “But I do a lot of this thing called sleeping, too… y’know?” He flashed him a small grin and popped his brows. “What about you? What do you do in your spare time that’s better than...” One hand gestured around the room at ‘all this’ was enough for him to understand the question.

To immediately draw a distinction as one hobby being somehow better than the other, Trev didn’t care for that presumption. Not one bit.  
“I study.” He left his retort at two words and resumed brushing his hair, though the movements turned sharp and jerky, the more frustrated he became. As far as he was concerned, coursework was not inherently more rewarding than art, it was just what he knew; and by the numbers, he was already better at it than eighty percent of his classmates. Though, fitting in the occasional ride-along patrol with Dennis didn’t hurt either. It served to get him outside, at least. “And that which I’m expected to learn is as boring as it is privileged information, not for the general public to know. Not much else to it.”  
“So, you’re a student, too,” Dylan noted without looking up. The virility in Trev’s inner thoughts was lost on him, and for the best since he’d apparently misread his implication to begin with. “Believe it or not, I _do_ like quiet nights in, it’s just that...” Dylan’s eyelids fluttered momentarily as he paused between cleaning spots on the floor. “...it _does_ get really lonely.”  
That bordered on too close to his own thoughts. How was it their experiences could be so different, yet so universal?  
“And _this_ is how you force people into spending time with you?” Langley growled quietly but a whine of distress slipped through as the comb finally snagged in the tangled knot he’d been brushing it all toward.  
Snagged and stuck.  
Fleur stopped what he was doing, walked over to the sink, and filled a brush can with hot water. “You know, you _could have_ walked away the first time you tried,” he reminded as he strode back over, leaving it at that instead of further rubbing it in that he’d _made_ the conscious decision to stay. In a wordless movement, he took the soap out of Trev’s hand, dunked it into the can, and lathered it into a frothy mess, then tried at touching his hair again. As expected, Trevor flinched away like a wounded animal; but instead of giving up, Fleur just took in a breath to steady himself, and waited for his feral instincts to subside. “You’re making it a lot harder for yourself than it needs to be. This will help, if you let it. _Please_.”

In spite of the mess of mixed up feelings working overtime to push him as far away as they possibly could, Dylan _still_ wasn’t intimidated by his snarling. How could he be so _calm_ in the face of anger? Where everyone else would have given up, he’d persisted, against his better judgment. Whether it was just sheer stupidity or naivety, he couldn’t say, but the boy’s patience was admirable.  
Or, maybe, _learned. _  
Trev’s brown eyes shifted focus over his shoulder at the painting one more time and withered just enough to drain the tension out of his expression. He wondered just what _his_ trauma could have been to have left such a deep, festering wound, and how he could have remained so patient in spite of it. Hesitantly, he lowered his hands, but not his guard; for the moment, he was tired of feeling so tightly wound.  
Fleur fingered the solidified chunk of hair and softly worked the soap into it from root to tip until he could feel the paint start to break down. The sensation of discomfort in Trev’s scalp subsided almost immediately, to his relief, but when Fleur reached for the comb, he snatched it out of the way and recoiled back to brush it out himself.  
No gloating smile or snarky grin came in response. Instead he just gave him the smallest hint of a smile as he watched him comb the knot out with considerably less effort. “_Better_?”  
A mumbled, disgruntled ‘_Yeah, thanks_’ was all he could offer in return amidst the combing. The paint came out easily now with the help of the soap, whether or not he wanted to admit that accepting his help had done him some good. The large, almost rubbery paint clumps rolled out with the lather in thin strands which dissolved into thinner pieces the longer it sat in the suds.

As Dylan turned back to his cleanup, Trev made the short trip to the sink in the back corner of the room with the sofa and stooped to attempt to rinse the mess out of his hair. He took his glasses off to fold up and hook over the collar of his shirt. Even if it was only a partially-simulated shower, it still served to do what running water over the head at the end of a long, tiring day did best: it made him _think_, made him wonder…  
Trev reached for the faucet and turned it off, wrung the water out of his hair as best he could, then reached for a hand towel and rubbed as much of the remaining dampness as he could out of it. If Fleur was really such a misanthrope that he rarely bothered to come out of his studio, then what had made him want to try and get to know _him_? Or rather, what made him ‘special enough’ to want to pull such an infuriating prank? Somewhere between the boring and the interesting, he was on the more favorable end of that scale, and that necessitated investigation.

“Why me?” he asked softly, his focus directed at the drain, towel still draped around his neck and hands gripped tight on the edge of the sink. Dylan paused mid-scrub and briefly met his eyes as Trevor looked his way. The look in them said everything and more, but Dylan answered anyway, in the simplest way he could.  
“...because you _get it_.”  
“Despite efforts to the contrary,” Trev noted pessimistically as he resumed brushing. This earned a quiet chuckle from his company, and Dylan paused to remain sitting on his knees for a few moments while cleaning up the last shoe print.  
“...you’re _hardly_ the most difficult person I’ve encountered,” Fleur admitted, to his surprise. Privately, he wondered if Dennis knew this, and if he did, to what degree- the whole ugly truth, or just a partial account. Alternatively, to have anyone describe him as somehow not difficult gave Trev another reason to pause. He stopped brushing a moment to peel gathered paint crumbs from between the bristles and hesitated, the question hitched in his throat. “And if I was, would we be having this conversation?”  
“Knowin’ me…? Yeah, probably,” Dylan snorted as he dunked the sponge in the now-lukewarm water and wrung it out. “But it also depends on what you mean by difficult, because it takes a lot to piss me off- narcissism, chauvinism, egotism, _prejudice_, bein’ an asshole just because you _can_.” The last two terms actually drew a curl in his lip as he scrubbed harder to scratch the dried paint off the hardwood with the rough side of the sponge. “Fame chasing, glory-seeking, hurting someone because it’ll benefit you or because it just makes you _happy_ to cut someone else down- that’s the kind of shit I can’t deal with in large doses, an’ I’ve met a lot of people like that in my life to know em’ when I see ‘em. So, _you_ tell _me_, Langley.” He paused long enough to spare him a questioning look. “Are you _any_ of those things? Or are you just hurtin’ and still a little _too raw_ for comfort?”

As he slid his glasses back on, Trevor swallowed, equal parts affronted and not that Dylan could see right through whatever he had passing for a mask. He blinked a few times to cover the involuntary twitch in his eyes, if not hide the nervous tremor in his throat that generated from nowhere to derail the sardonic retort he’d put together. And here he once thought getting away from Rhea and Dahlia would mean avoiding discussing this.  
A response to the former query and not the latter would be an answer in itself, no matter how he worded it, and that would have to suffice. “If I am those qualities in any measure, it’s not intentional. I… I’m still figuring it out.” Trevor focused on a stretched lock of hair and picked a few remaining paint clumps out, to avoid focusing on how hot his cheeks had become. “It’s- complicated.”  
“Well, take a breath, then, ‘cause as far as I can see, _you’re not_.” Dylan pushed himself up off the floor and stooped to pick up the bucket, then turned and looked over with a reassuring smile. “I can handle damaged, Trev. I’d be a hypocrite if I couldn’t.”  
The flush faded and Trev set his eyebrows in a flat line to mirror his mouth. It was nice to offer, but… “Not sure mine’s the kind of damage you’d care to hear about,” he deflected half-heartedly.  
“Then try me some time, you might be pleasantly surprised.”

Part of him wished he hadn’t said it, but another, slightly larger part of him felt relieved at his offer. Persistence was starting to get through to him, or maybe he was just tired of arguing semantics. He watched as Fleur crossed the room, a rag and bucket in hand, and bent down to wipe up the small bits of yellow that had spilled out into the hallway. This whole encounter had started off so completely _opposite_, he was having a hard time believing he was still talking to the same person that had him so thoroughly pissed off an hour earlier. Instead of being at odds with a new enemy, he now found himself in the company of someone who was just as misunderstood as he- someone genuine, someone kind, someone with the potential to be a _real friend_ if he was ever brave enough to venture out of his shell again.  
Which he had already begun to do, whether he wanted it or not. The charm had been one of the first things he had joked about, but self-deprecating or not, there had been truth in what he’d said: Dylan _was_ magnetic and charismatic, much more so than he was repulsive. And out of the hundreds- hell, _thousands_ of people he’d probably met and decided he wanted nothing to do with, he saw something in _him_ that made him determined enough to dig his heels in and persist despite Trev’s resistance.  
In the end, he _had_ taught him a valuable lesson about loosening up- and how accepting help wasn’t an admission of defeat, but a valuable tool in overcoming problems (_as demonstrated by the comb now gliding through his hair with ease_). He didn’t _have_ to be alone if he didn’t want to be, he didn’t _have_ to bury his trauma under so many layers of irritation and short-tempered reactions and never again trust another enough to open up.  
But he wasn’t quite there yet, brave enough to face the full scope of all that wasn’t on the agenda. Dylan had somehow managed to throw back the curtains on his gloom and doom and let the light in, but he wasn’t ready to open the window.

“Not today,” he finally replied after several minutes of silence, not wanting to sound too much like he’d be willing to consider acting on his offer, if their budding friendship even made it that far; even still, the implication of his word choice was apparently obvious enough.  
Dylan smiled, more happy than mischievous initially, but because it was in his nature to not let things get _too comfortable_ (_which Trev quietly thanked him for_), it tainted the otherwise lighthearted mood with coy suspicion.  
“You mean you might come _back_ one of these days…? After _everything I put you through_…?”  
Instantly, Trevor backpedaled with a defensive finger point at his teasing. “Hey- don’t push your luck,” he warned, eyes squinty and head tilted.  
“It’s almost like I _knew_ you were a good egg…”  
“Alright, _that’s it_\- visitation rights have been revoked.”  
“What!?” Dylan’s fake-outrage was overpowered by laughter and a charming smile Trev found himself growing fonder of every time he saw it (_and deep down, it terrified him_). “But I just _complimented_ you…!”  
“Keep it up, and I might just relocate to the next zip code, _and_ change my name.” It might have been the best thing for him, if this kept up.  
“Oh, _come on now_, don’t be so dramatic…”

Another ten minutes of idle banter elapsed before the world outside saw fit to make itself known again. Appearing with as little warning as he had the first time, Dennis Lenore didn’t knock. To find them right back where they began wasn’t a big leap of logic, having last seen them at the onset of the chase, although he probably did wonder why Trev didn’t simply return to the dining room.  
The sight of him perched atop one of the stools -in a fresh set of borrowed leisure clothes, listening to Dylan chatter on and on with a faint smile, a few stubborn flakes of paint still entrenched in his hairline- got an instant smirk out of him, though no questions were asked, about the fate of the suit or otherwise.  
“_Well_, I see you two are gettin’ along great.”  
His choice of adjective was enough to get a mildly-irritated glower out of both of them. This was, in part, all the older officer’s doing. ‘_You’ll thank me later_,’ he’d said, somewhat premonition-like. There was absolutely no way he hadn’t known what he was doing.  
Trev breached that new silence first with a mannerly stretch. “Yes, sir. Mr. Fleur is… _different_ from what I expected.”  
“So, it’s Mr. now, huh?” Dylan teased with a sideways glance and a smirk.  
“Don’t get used to it,” he quickly amended once he realized how awkward it sounded, given how Dennis’ expression curdled a bit. “In any case, he was generous enough to not leave me a mess afterward.”  
“Hey, aftercare is important,” Dylan chimed in with a smirk and a ribbing nudge as he got up and passed Trev on his way to dump out the water bucket. The double meaning went over Trev’s head initially, but it came back around like a boomerang when it got an uncomfortable snort and a chuckle out of Lenore, and he flushed softly with an annoyed scowl.  
“Just glad to see you’re both in one piece.”  
“We had a rough start, but… we came to an understanding, of _not_ understanding,” Fleur explained with a sideways wink in Trev’s direction that was met by a sigh and an eye-roll that somehow bordered on amicable.  
“It could have been _much_ worse.”  
“Or _better_.”  
A sputtering choke on his next words at the evolution of Den’s expression from amused to devious did well enough to convey that the context had not been lost on him that time, but the blushing helped.  
“So does that mean you’re stayin’ the night, or do we need to get gone?”  
Trev sat up a bit straighter and practically jumped out of the chair as he made a note of the time. “I have classes tomorrow,” he reminded in nervous tenor, almost as if he’d completely forgotten. It _was_, technically, a few short hours away; even if he didn’t _need_ to sleep, he could use a recharge after the events of the night. Thankfully, the courses were held during reasonable daytime hours, so there was still time.

Looking less than compelled to back him up, Dennis shrugged and eyed him with no small measure of skepticism. “Don’t blow a gasket. You’ll only need a few hours’ recharge. Could stay and have a new uniform at the front door tomorrow morning.”  
“No, sir. I already-“ Trev’s stuttering insistence got the better of him momentarily, and he paused to take a calming breath. “Your suit is already going to need washing; I couldn’t impose any more expenses.”  
“Ah, give it a rest, Den… if he wants to go home, it’s fine by me. Wouldn’t want him to OD on my company the first night.” There was a twinge of disappointment in Dylan’s voice as he shut off the faucet and placed the bucket aside to dry. He crossed his arms and pulled the sleeveless cardigan shut over his bare chest as he crossed the room and set his gaze on the floor.  
The motion came across like curtains on a stage show being drawn closed. Reminded of the quiet, empty dorm room waiting for him back in the city, Trev was a bit taken aback at how he didn’t sprint right out the door. Given the chance, Dennis offering to arrange it so they might stay was and wasn’t tempting, for a multitude of reasons. On one hand, the realization that for the last half an hour, he’d felt more even-tempered and calmer than he had in months, insisted he stay; but on the other, paranoia that this wouldn’t (_or maybe couldn’t_) last compelled him to go and pretend none of this ever happened.  
Fleur’s upbeat mood suddenly deflating with the realization they’d have to pick this exchange up another day, was strangely not as satisfying to see as he’d thought it would be; if anything, it was a disappointment he understood, as much as he didn’t want to. But he hadn’t made any promises to come back, only to consider they stay in touch. That wasn’t necessarily a binding contract, or even a verbal agreement.

Still, being the eagle-eyed detective that he was, Dennis read between the lines just fine.  
“I can always pull him off a patrol to send over as needed, Dylan. The socialization will do you both a world of good.”  
Trev hid another twitch by grabbing up the plastic bag containing his spotted garments, looked down at himself, then sidelong at Dylan. “I _will_ need to return these at some point,” he debated audibly. The notion perked him up ever so slightly, and his eyes caught Trev’s flicker of brown with a sideways glance.  
“You can keep them if you want. You said you don’t have many clothes to begin with, right?” he offered as he meandered toward the painting and leaned one shoulder against canvas frame.  
“They’re not really my… preference,” he declined, but as expected, Dylan was un-dissuaded.  
One hand lifted and rapped a knuckle against the wooden stretch beam behind him with a grin. “Then maybe next time, we can throw this shit where it was _supposed to_ go- maybe show you an old black an’ white?”  
Dennis squinted at the canvas, gleaning only a surface impression before mutely shaking his head. Nick probably wouldn’t have found this work along the same lines of ‘nice’, were he there to see it. Trev barely managed to not cringe; he still couldn’t understand his reasoning for _why_ he’d want to wash away all that hard work with a new coat of paint. “I don’t know when that might be. I have- assignments to tend to.”  
Lenore called the excuse out for what it was and shot him a scowl accompanied by a light slap on the shoulder. “Stop lying, kid. It’s unbecoming of any policeman,” he scolded over his shoulder as he turned out the door.

Dylan tossed Dennis an annoyed look that screamed ‘_knock it off_’ as he walked away, ineffective as it was when aimed at the back of his head, then turned back to respond to Trevor with an open-ended offer. His fingers nervously twitched and squeezed at his arm just trying to get it out. “Well… if you get lonely or want someplace else to chill, you know where to find me. I’m always here, don’t have much else goin’ on.” One hand extended to gesture around the room with a flourish and a chuckle to illustrate this. Decorated or not, it probably wasn’t as lively-looking as he made it seem.  
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” To Trev, it sounded ideal. A chamber within which one was pretty much guaranteed isolation was the best possible setting to ‘introvene’, as the made-up term would imply.  
Dylan made a face, clearly not of the same opinion. “It _can be_, when you start goin’ stir-crazy from bein’ cooped up inside for so long.”  
_And...? _ He wasn’t _already_ half crazy by default? Trev scoffed, pushed his glasses back into place. “That’s what walks are for.” His second favorite pastime- it might not be as exciting as some alternatives, but after what he had been through, monotonous was right up his alley.  
“Yeah, and we’ve got a _lot of land_ to do that on, and you wouldn’t even have to worry about running into other people…” Fleur raised his brows, probably expecting him to come around to the idea. “How’s that sound?”  
“Almost perfect,” Trev replied with a slight smirk that dropped as soon as it appeared. “But _you’d still be there_.”  
Dylan rolled his eyes, smiled big and shook his head. “C’mon… I thought we were past that.”  
“I _also_ told you not to push your luck, but here we are.”  
“Who’s bein’ pushy…?” The coy grin lingering on his lips almost reached the apples of his cheeks. “I’m just gently planting seeds.”  
Artists had a penchant for using such poetic phrases, it was true. “So- what? You’re a _gardener_ now, too…?”

_LANGLEY! YOU COMIN’ OR STAYIN’? _

“COMING!” Trev shouted back, almost jumping as he nervously made for the door. His own impulsive reaction to yell versus use the comm left him cringing. “I mean- I’d say it was nice meeting you, but it was easily one of the worst introductions I’ve ever suffered.”  
Not the worst- it was up there, as far as he could remember.  
But it had also somehow segued into the smoothest recovery he’d _ever witnessed_.  
Not that he’d ever tell him that.  
Dylan chuckled again, perpetually amused. “Hey- Mom always said it was better to leave an impression than to be immediately forgotten…”  
“Yes, well, you’ve certainly done _that_.” Looking down at himself, Trev managed not to lose it to another flustered tirade. One way or another, these clothes would have to come back. “I’ll… drop these off when I can.”  
The look that crossed Fleur’s face was that of surprised contentment, even a little bashfulness. _Somehow_, he’d evidently gotten the response he’d been waiting for out of him, and it seemed even _he_ didn’t expect to succeed.  
Before he could delay their departure any longer, he turned on his heel and made for the stairs, Dylan’s voice calling out to catch him just as he passed through the threshold of the studio.  
“Don’t feel like you need to bother with calling ahead, the door’s always open.”

Letting Trev make the decision as to _when_ that would be, compared to Dennis’ indirect attempt to _force him_ into making a commitment on the spot, went a long way in fostering his slowly developing appreciation for Dylan Fleur, however irksome he was. Perhaps that was why he’d been finding it so hard to leave. After all, there had only ever been one other person he’d gelled with so quickly after meeting.  
Langley’s hand balled into a fist at his side as the tremor returned, his pace quickened to a trot down the bottom steps, and he nearly sprinted out the door to catch up with Dennis before he missed his ride home. He didn’t want to think about this right now, he didn’t _need_ to be reminded of that gaping wound in his heart. That had been the real problem with this situation- the fact that he simultaneously saw too much and too little of a dead man in him. Maybe it needn’t have been so difficult, but he hadn’t wanted it to be this _easy_ either.


	4. Ambivalence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor spends the weekend unpacking how he feels about what transpired on the Fourth, and returns to the mansion as promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like our work, please consider [[ joining our discord ]](https://discord.gg/AfteugU) for a catalogue of character bios and a glossary of terms, or dropping by [[ Detroit: New ERA ]](https://discord.gg/ec69ttR)'s Discord and the [[ Detroit: Become Human Official Amino ]](https://aminoapps.com/c/detroitbecomhumanofficial/page/user/dbh-illuminate/Bvad_jPsbfozYpNPN1j2aeQNde3eEED2RZ) to let the MODs know! It would really help us out!

**July 4th, 2041 - 10:56 PM**

The ride home was just as insufferable as the commute out, if not moreso. Dennis hadn’t been able to contain the infectious grin for longer than ten minutes before he’d started prodding him with invasive questions and observations. Then it was one after another after another, like a conga-line of aggravation.  
_You seem a lot more relaxed now than you did earlier. Looks like the two of you really hit it off. Did you have fun? What do you think? Are you gonna visit again? You should, it’d really do you both some good._  
On and on and on and _on he went_, so long winded that after a certain point, Trev turned off his audio receptors just so he could hear himself think. The _last thing_ he wanted while he was trying to decompress and process everything he had learned about Dylan Fleur, was to have another beyond-redundant, one-sided ‘I told you so’ conversation with Lenore, however good his intentions had been.

Thinking on how ‘successful’ the setup was just made him want to deny everything before he could even acknowledge it, but it was a little late for second thoughts now. Infantile as said appreciation was for Dylan’s tireless tenacity and ass-backward definition of tact, he couldn’t deny that his company still had more going for it than the lonely apartment awaiting him could offer. It had taken a new experience to really put into perspective how empty he felt without someone to talk to, just as being outed as an Android had irreversibly altered everything he _thought_ he knew about himself, where he fit into the world, and his reason for being at all. It wasn’t _all_ bad though. Dylan was a far better person for catalyzing the revelation the way he had (_namely because no one needed to die to reveal it_), even if it meant suffering a few inquisitional phases. Good-intentioned people or not, most went about asking the _wrong way entirely_, their fixated earnestness feeling more grating than gratifying in his twisted-up mind (_with the exception of Dennis, whose brusque and authoritative approach Trev didn’t mind half as much_).  
But not Fleur.  
Even though he’d had his moments where he’d crossed the line of what were and weren’t acceptable topics of conversation, Trev _did_ have to give him credit for backing off at the first sign of severe discomfort. Most wouldn’t have taken the hint, most would have kept pushing for an answer to sate their own curiosities. Compared to the humiliation of admitting to someone ‘I believed I was human until about five months ago’ and being outright laughed at, shots from rubber bands and paint balloons were a small nuisance to endure for the sake of a little company; and it _had_ eventually ended with Fleur making the effort to clean up the mess he’d made of him, inside _and _out. In that case specifically, he supposed some nuisances were better than none at all, if they made him feel important and not forgotten. Dylan had done well enough to make sure of that, compared to those at the academy who assumed his status within Archangel to be higher than it actually was.  
Truth was, RK800 or not, Trev was simply a nobody with a famous pedigree and a unique circumstance. Having virtually the same face as Connor or Zach or any other primaries he had met, had done no favors to endear him to them. Contrary to popular belief, it hadn’t netted any special perks- it hadn’t nabbed him the biggest dorm room in the building, a department-issued ride, or an all-access pass to Illuminate archives. Not even Spencer had made any qualms about the similarities in their appearance, just deflected it when others asked, saying _he_ was simply ‘modeled after him’. The falsified story was that _Spencer_ had been designed to resemble Trev, and not vice versa. What a crock _that _turned out to be.

Thinking of Spencer immediately sombered him, amidst musing over how quiet and empty his living space was. The shower he had intended to take didn’t feel so important, once he’d made it home. His desire to do so had gone by the wayside after he bid Dennis farewell, apologized again for leaving him with a blotchy suit to dry clean (_as the detective insisted on doing, no less than three times_), and closed the door. Trev’s mind was quickly turning into someplace he’d rather not be, and a shower would only open the floodgates for _more_stray thoughts to find their way in. He could still spare another hour before tending to end-of-day maintenance, if it meant dodging that potential breakdown for a little longer.  
Langley paused at the door as it closed behind him and took a glance around the room. The dorms weren’t short on repurposed refuse, being the old disused apartment complex it once was. Most of the units hadn’t been cleared of what had been left behind by previous tenants, except to make room for new beds. City renovation crews had made sure the building was up to code before allowing anyone to live in it again. Holes in the walls and ceilings had been patched, water and electricity restored to working order, the dingy walls cleaned and repainted, the floors resurfaced where needed, and the building tented to get rid of unwanted pests. Archangel had done the rest to supply whatever their students needed- thirium or other necessary fluids, plus tools and parts required for maintenance could be found in the commissary on the first floor, free of charge.  
Had he been housed here without such a drastic revelation to expose his android heritage (_and shatter the façade of being human_), he may have bought into it, simply based on the facts that he had never starved or asked where the bathroom was. Short term memory pre-constructs had once filled the gaps were such inconsistencies would have stood out, but with his awakening had come the loss of the need for such subroutines to execute, leaving him with the fallout of constant reminders that he was not what he once thought. And because of that, it had and hadn’t been easy to adjust to life in _ Zion (Detroit’s newly established Android suburb_). Being surrounded by so many other androids who had developed their own semblance of society, and a number of like-minded humans helping them find their feet, wasn’t what bothered him. What he had such a hard time dealing with was being faced with all that he didn’t do, but once believed he did.

Trevor paced across the tiny room and brushed his fingertips over the desk by the window, opened the single drawer and sifted through what few provisions his study desk contained that weren’t technical in design, seeking just what Dylan had suggested: an outlet, something to keep his hands busy while his mind churned away. As fate would have it, its previous owner had left behind a few pencils and some old sheets of blank, yellowing stationery that crackled loudly to the touch. He’d never used something as archaic as this, but seeing the drawings on the walls had him curious to see what it would _feel like_ to drag the graphite across the page, and what it might yield. Trev reached for the items, set them out on the table, flipped on the desk lamp and sat down to find out, if only to get the whim to do so out of his system before it manifested into something that couldn’t be ignored.  
Idly, he scratched the dull point of the pencil back and forth over the scrap paper and thought again on Dylan’s offer about the door being ‘always open’. So far, he had nothing _but_ reason to believe it was genuine- the boy had made it abundantly clear that he would have liked to see him come around again. So if by some _miracle_ he’d just been leading him on, did he really have much to lose in taking him up on it, aside from maybe a little peace of mind?  
The subtle vibration from the toothy drag of graphite against paper was weirdly soothing. Even if it wasn’t exactly productive, it was still a nice break from doing digital coursework for a job he already knew how to perform back to front, with the exception of a few changes unique to Zion law. For the most part, Archangel had imported Detroit’s Law Enforcement standard and Municipal Law as it was; but due to the nature of its Android population, some laws had been added or amended appropriately. It would have been easy enough just to give him a list of the differences and significantly cut back on his time in the academy. But after nearly three months of no police work after a psychotic break, Sarah decided that a full course would serve him well as a refresher, in addition to helping him fit in with the other cadets.  
Some days Trev envied them, as one might through a pane of glass. What he wouldn’t _give_ to be just another starry-eyed pupil of law enforcement, fresh and green and running only with a want to learn. All he knew -apart from what he wasn’t- was law enforcement, even if his blue-blooded heart just wasn’t in it the way it once was. He was supposed to want to help others (_‘Protect and Serve’ and all that jazz_), but considering the mental condition he was in these days, it would have been better for everyone if he’d just bothered to help himself first. At _some point_ he would have to become self-sufficient, take charge of whatever his life was outside the job, and learn how to become more personable. Everyone was saying as much, in their own way… but why did it have to be such a hurdle?

“That _blasted_-”  
Five minutes later he conceded exactly what he was drawing with a scathing glare, the android sighed, swept it off the desk and listened to it flutter to the floor. What began as two symmetrical circles had turned into a macro study of a pair of eyes. Even without any color attributed to them, the sly slant of them, the svelte lashes, and the freckles peppered around the sockets could only belong to one person. The worst of it was that he hadn’t even given much conscious thought to what his hand would draw; but as he detuned from the world for a few moments, it was the defining characteristic of his would-be associate he was invariably drawn toward. The magnetism was at work, even at a distance, and couldn’t let him forget even for a few minutes.  
Fighting it would be more of a headache than simply letting it be, and therein lay the problem. It was going along with what seemed like the easy route that had led to the status quo being shattered before. Logically, there was no possible way this could go so horribly wrong the same way twice, but he couldn’t be faulted for being leery.

_Putting ideas in my head like that. Who does he think he is? And who am I kidding? This won’t benefit anybody. It’ll only be a - a waste of time. I don’t need distractions. I need to focus. I can’t - lose focus again._

But that had been the problem from the start- if he had focused more to begin with, questioned more, put the puzzle together faster, maybe he wouldn’t be here. Maybe he would have figured it out sooner. _Maybe Spencer wouldn’t be dead_.  
That was a lot of maybes to get so hung up on, when Dennis had started the night off reminding him to try and take it easy and not implode. Without the constant cajoling that followed, however, that proved difficult to achieve, and the path of self-pity so much easier to follow.

_Maybe_ if they had seen fit to lay off -

_-they wouldn’t have burned that lead out so fast. Spencer cautioned him against tailing the witness for too long, and too obviously, thinking they were actually part of the gambling scam and not the victim they played at being. Instead, now they were looking at a whole lot of nothing for three days of combing the docks, trying to find the back door that led to this supposed racket. “I wouldn’t say you screwed the pooch, Officer. But you certainly gave her the wrong vibe.”_

Trevor’s mind halted mid-memory as his hand (_still scrawling across another piece of paper_) came into focus. At some point, amidst his thoughts, he had subconsciously picked up the pencil and started drawing again. He brushed the next paper away angrily in an attempt to ignore the partially-complete side profile outlining a strong brow and proud nose, then reached for the coat pocket he thought he still had before remembering he was no longer in a suit-  
And froze as he realized the Massachusetts state quarter which typically never left his sight had gone with it. What most would have considered a simple quarter meant infinitely more to him- it was one of the only things he’d brought with him after the Rise and Fall of Purgatory, and the only remaining thing connecting him to his dead friend.

Once Boston had been reclaimed and returned to order, only so much evidence was saved. Once the National Guard had moved in as backup to Archangel, they’d made it a priority to search the living _and_ the dead for any clues as to possible contingency plans laid down by the Horsemen. Nicodemus, War, Pestilence and Death were accounted for, while Famine remained at large, to this very _day_.  
Replaying recovered memories of the deceased to backtrack as many fatalities as possible (_perpetrated by Nicodemus and his gang_), only served as reason to fill out causes of death on certificates, and it took _months_to complete. Even with Archangel’s cooperation with the FBI, the National Guard, and remnants of the fledgling Boston branch of Zion and Boston’s Police force, the sheer volume of footage and number of bodies to identify was astronomical. Casualties had surpassed the triple digits once everything was said and done. Among the deceased found at BPD’s Central Station was his recently departed partner, Spencer, whose drives had corroborated Trevor’s story, even if he was no longer with them to speak for himself; and all that had been found on his body, aside from the clothes on his back, was a Massachusetts State quarter that had been assigned to him on the day of his activation as a calibration device. Every primary RK investigator had been given one, in accordance with their state of service.

In spite of knowing this, the _last_ thing on Trevor’s mind as he fled for his life was to stop and _rifle through Spencer’s pockets_ looking for a keepsake to remember him by. He had hardly been of half a mind to make the conscious decision to escape when he had the chance, but self-preservation insisted in spite of the wanton desire to self-destruct, as all androids usually leaned toward in such stressful situations. Instead, he ran, like if he moved fast enough he could outrun the reality of what had just happened.  
Like something out of a Warner Brothers skit, Dennis Lenore reached out from around the corner of a crumbling building on the outskirts of town to snag him mid flight. Trev couldn’t recall much of what he might have said besides gibberish, incoherent shrieking, and whining like a maimed puppy on the run. What he _did _remember was Dennis’ insistence he not try to leave the city, because the Horsemen had been shooting anyone trying to get in or out. This had only panicked him more, and reactivated his self-destruct protocol. Luckily, Lenore decked him cold in one shot before he could get his hands on his gun. It was not the most flattering introduction, from either party, but they’d made amends about a month later while Trev was still under protective custody in a cell at Archangel Detroit.  
With Boston under control and the Elysian Outbreak nullified, there was little to no time for them to really reconnect; but one night Dennis was able to make time for a quick stop to pass on the only material possession Spencer had owned. He spotted The Minuteman statue inscribed on the face of the coin the moment he pulled it from his pocket- Trev could barely contain his tears as he plucked it out of his hand, equal parts delighted and miserable at seeing it again, and it hadn’t left his side since.  
Until that night.

The trembling in his fingers started up, same as it had on the ride home. It wasn’t nervousness or any tangible fear. The technicians at Archangel who’d pieced together his file post-Purgatory —Nick included— had determined that severe PTSD was to blame for the shakes. After all, any living thing would be scared stiff by a low-flying bullet grazing their head, even more so if the same bullet killed the only ally they’d had. It was comforting to know that even with it stowed away in a borrowed jacket, it had still wound up in the hands of the same person who’d discovered it to begin with. There was still a chance it hadn’t been lost, but the absence was distressing all the same. He hadn’t been without his ‘safety blanket’ in months.  
Trev left the pencil on the desk, unable to trust that he could hold it with a steady hand, and gathered up the tossed drawings, rather than let dismay get the better of him. When the shakes would decide to mellow out on their own was the most maddening thought. He hadn’t been in a similar situation since, so why was it acting up now, of all times?  
“Planting seeds, my- _as if_.” Trev aborted the desire to curse at the last second and snatched the papers up to throw on the desk, anticlimactic as it was, and folded his legs to curl up in the chair. His fingers instinctively crawled up the back of his neck into his hair and dug angrily into his scalp, caught between the urge to rant or stand and pace. But, seeing as there was no one around to hear him unload, he went for the former.

“I don’t _need_ that. I don’t- need any of it. I can’t need-... I shouldn’t have to-... I wouldn’t think to if I-...” The constant stuttering of one thought into the next before he could even finish it discouraged him and brought out a frustrated groan, and his old accent, British and feigned as it was.  
“Oh, yeah, _sure_. I’m just right as rain, aren’t I?” Asking this of himself was wrenching enough to twist a half sob out of him. “_Sure_ \- can’t even finish a thought without half-stroking out. _Oh_, but remember now, androids _ can’t do that_.” Even he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth, not when it felt so genuinely real.  
“No, _sir_, we don’t have any of those same carbon-based health problems our friendly neighborhood humans do. No arteries in the head prone to getting clogged up, or organs that deteriorate, or easily punctured bodies… because lucky us! We only exist thanks to their bloody-... _ingenuity_.” He alone was proof of Cyberlife’s curiosity of how convincingly a human could fake out an Android into thinking it was something it wasn’t, even if he never asked for it.  
“Yeah, and that’s all well and good for the _ rest _ of you, but the one thing they’ve got in common is not knowing when to just leave. It. _ALONE_.”

Shutting down all his external senses at once probably wouldn’t help —it would be like putting a small box inside of a larger one, trying to muffle the input but putting oneself at the mercy of enduring a spiraling slide— but he tried for it nonetheless. It wasn’t like he hadn’t before.

_— He only meant to help those civilians caught in the conference room of the department headquarters. The lights had gone out. Spencer told him they needed to run, get to the nearest weapons locker, try and prepare a defense. Trevor knew the layout of this given floor. There was an exit closer to this room, out into the side parking lot where the vehicles would offer better cover than office chairs and tables to hide under._   
_Both of them had heard the radio light up just as they heard and felt the shudders of bombs going off. Nicodemus’ forces emerged in one fell swoop, having blended in with the masses as seamlessly as ice in water. They carried an impressive array of weapons besides firearms, rolling through outlying districts to take down entire buildings in one shot- loosing noxious gases in some, hurling Molotov cocktails through the windows of others, shooting pedestrians on-sight as they tried to flee the carnage. The streets were a horror show unto themselves, a burgeoning war zone, but getting out of the station quickly meant a better chance of finding backup to coordinate._   
_But as he reached for the doorknob the frosted-glass door swung open just inches from his nose, and the intruder grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and lifted him off his feet—_

The replay ended with a jolting surge of electricity between the ears. His eyes blinked open on reflex, temporarily blinded by the disable command in place.  
“He shouldn’t have-... argued. He should have listened. Whatever his-... _orders_ were, the ruse or- or anything to do with it, he had to know we needed to get- get out of…”  
He gradually slowed from the tangent he had lapsed into, biocomponents rebooted automatically after being disabled for so long. Trev didn’t notice that he had slumped down to sit on the floor until he was already there, and blinked slowly and how uncomfortable he was with the seat of the chair jabbing into the back of his neck. His hands still gripped fistfuls of hair while his breath whistled in and out in sharp, whinging gasps. He was scared stiff, _again_, and that hadn’t even been the worst he could recall about said day. So much for avoiding a breakdown.

_No. I can’t do this. I can’t get close. Close is dangerous. It can’t happen again. Boston was bad enough. I can’t let anyone get hurt because I didn’t pay enough attention. No one else is going to die because of me. No one else. They won’t. I’ll stay right here, where it’s safe and quiet and… and just shut out everything else._

Eventually, the piqued breaths smoothed out, even if it was only a lull between this and the next fit. Trev uncurled his fingers, which felt more like rusty hinges, and gradually came back to his senses. Optics flickered twice as they rebooted to the sight of pale skin as it reformed over his palms and languidly spread upward to sheath over his bare digits. However many times he watched it happen didn’t dull the unease of what was disconcerting to see. Even for an upright-standing hunk of plasti-metal, wires, processors, fuel lines, and nanoparticle-based projections trying to pass itself off as human, it still just _wasn’t natural_.  
He couldn’t contain the shudder as he wrapped his arms around his knees and curled up into the fetal position as only a natural-born creature should. He should have walked away- not linger against his better judgment, not engaged, not said anything. Maybe if he hadn’t he wouldn’t be as much of a mental mess. He’d given that boy an inch, and now here he was back in his dorm (his supposed place of peace and solitude), _wearing his clothes_, barely through a breakdown brought on by how his fragmented mind couldn’t handle the thought of getting close to someone just to lose them again.

And yet was still trying to. Maybe he _wanted_ to be close, to belong somewhere again, or maybe it was the worst possible thing he could do. He couldn’t have it both ways. Maybe that was what drew the tears out, unwanted as they were, but holding them back only intensified the burning feeling in his chest. As comfortable as his clothes were, clean and soft and smelling faintly of pigmented oil, huddling into them in the absence of a hug may as well have been an embrace as rough as burlap. The sleeves barely muffled his sobs as he buried his face in his arms, saline smeared the inner surface of his glasses into a blurry mess before he fitfully tore them off and tossed them aside. The frames clacked several times as they ragdolled across the floor, but he couldn’t care less if they wound up scratched. If that night had shown him anything, it was that he didn’t need glasses to see how lonely he really was. There were other things in his life he needed more than a pair of prop gunmetal gray frames still spotted with acrylic.

———

Eight hours of repose didn't make the next day any easier. When he woke up he was surprised he didn’t even remember falling asleep with the light on. That detail alone puzzled him to no end- most nights ended with just a few measly hours of rest after a sleepless night of rumination (if he didn’t give in to insomnia first and just say _forget it_), yet _somehow_ he’d found enough relief from the hurricane of emotions that had left him a walking disaster the night before, to have fallen into a deep sleep. As perplexing as it was, he couldn’t really complain.  
If there was an upside to being without the one material reminder of his old life, it came in the form of keeping himself buried in the coursework. Studying more than just law sufficed to keep him busy at almost all times. When his hands were constantly on a tablet or angled down in the pages of a book, his classmates weren’t so inclined to pester him. The downside was the rapidly mounting stress of wonder and dread, with no outlet to contain it. Scribbling sketches here and there was like bailing out a slowly sinking rowboat with a teaspoon.

The first sign it wasn’t working was when he woke the morning after the breakdown to find himself sprawled in a bed he didn’t remember climbing into, wearing Dylan’s on-loan clothes like a comfort blanket. He’d bolted to the shower, amidst much-agitated muttering, fitfully scrubbed the last of the dried paint from his skin and hair, then raided his closet for a fresh set of cadet duds as he tried to be rational about how he could track the quarter down. He made a call to Dennis once he thought his nerves were sufficiently mellowed out, only to be further dismayed at learning the suit _had_, in fact, been left in the care of a local dry cleaning service. Trev tried to hide the panic in his voice as he shakily asked if there was any way to expedite the job, or have the clothes delivered to his dorm.  
Dennis saw through to his ulterior motive in a second. _“You’re upset I didn’t check the pockets? Really. Kid, I thought you would’ve been of a mind to do that.”_ The frown in his voice was _palpable_.  
“I was- I meant to, only I… I…” He stammered to an embarrassed stop the second he realized how desperate he must have sounded over what was actually a very trivial matter to most. Trev slumped against the nearest wall and smothered a distressed whine. The old flip phone he held to his ear was dead as a doornail, but force of habit compelled him to speak out loud anyway. The physical weight of it in his hand was grounding, compared to _thinking_ the conversation over the private line like Android telepathy. “Never mind. I just-... will you call me, _please_? As soon as you have it back?”  
_“No promises. I can check with the cleaner, see if they found anything. But if they didn’t-”_  
“I know. Sir. Thank you either way.”

The first day was rough. His mood took a hard nosedive that loomed over him like a shadow, and it only got progressively worse the longer he went without something to keep him occupied. Getting dressed was more of an emotional chore than he’d expected, and it took every last ounce of mental strength to force himself out of the apartment and trudge the few blocks to Archangel HQ. The best he could do in the meantime was to throw himself into his studies. Maybe he came across as sulky and short-tempered but at the same time, he didn’t care _how_ he came across to anyone else, because no one even bothered to ask _why_ . Not his classmates, or his instructors, _or_ the other Lenores.  
The second the clock hit four, Trev was up and out the door before anyone could notice he was gone, and home with the door closed and locked without any further attempts at interruption. He’d been waiting all day for isolation, thinking it was just what he needed, but it only took an hour for the anxiety to settle in and the shaking in his arms to start back up. After about two hours of trying to tune it out but failing miserably, Trev stood, locked his fingers behind his head, pressed against the discomfort in his neck, and paced the room, hoping to burn off a little of the excess negative energy. It was only seven PM, but at this rate it may as well have been eleven, because there was _no way_ he was going to get any sleep that night.  
Then again… he’d thought the same thing last night and somehow crashed so hard he didn’t notice it happen. But _how_ when he had been so wound up to begin with…? Maybe he’d worn himself out emotionally with all the rapid cycling through anger, sorrow, anxiety, and depression once he finally sat down to think. Then again, it wasn’t the first time he’d been there... but it _was_ the first time he’d managed to sleep after such a breakdown. The only uncommon denominator among the other instances was the devil he’d rather forget.  
Trev glanced sidelong at the folded up clothing still sitting out on top of the dresser, waiting to be taken home, taunting him with the knowledge that he would have to see him again.  
_Like it or…_  
The longer he stared at it, the more clearly he understood. He frowned at the dawning realization- even just _thinking_ about it took the edge off his anxiety over the possibility that he’d lost Spencer’s quarter; it also quietly fed the fear of what that meant. Still, fear was more tolerable than anxiety. Fear could be conquered.  
Against (_what he thought to be_) his better judgment, he’d conducted an experiment to test his working theory and slept another night in those clothes, just as soundly as the night before. Perhaps in the same way that fidgeting with the quarter calmed his mind, sinking into the comfort of something that belonged to someone who truly understood his pain, made him feel less alone- made him feel like _maybe he belonged_.

But another good night’s sleep still wasn’t enough of a reprieve to ease his nerves during the following day. Even the one other person around the precinct who he might call a friendly acquaintance, Cassandra Carter, wasn’t spared a sideways, narrow-eyed glare one afternoon as she tried to pat his shoulder in passing.  
“Touch me again, and you’ll need to replace that hand.”  
Cassie snapped back her hand as if he’d burned her and looked as though she didn’t even recognize the person sitting there, though her concern cooled his temper before it could flash boil into another scalding burst of anger. Trev slumped over his book on the table and buried his face in his arms to hide the grimace he made at how bent out of shape he was over a tiny piece of metal.  
“Meaning… you’ll probably - have to wash it. I’ve worn these same clothes for two days,” he explained with a groan.  
CC’s former occupation as a therapist was a testament to how she handled confrontation with as much grace as she did. Instead of snapping back, like many would have, she just scoffed in amusement at his transparent excuse and ghosted a light, knowing touch over his head to lightly ruffle his hair. “_Please_, Langley. You’re a neat freak, but that’s no reason to think you accumulate dirt faster than the rest of us.”

The rest of the study period was a little more bearable for that forgiving attitude, but Trev was even _less_ understanding toward the next person to contact him out of the blue. It was unfair of him to hold it against her for only checking in intermittently (_after all, some ties were better than none at all_), but at the risk of sounding too harsh, Vivienne Lenore —one of Zion’s founding cornerstones and mother figure to most of those in his immediate circle— would have been better off focusing on her own priorities. She’d only been married a year or so, and (_if he wasn’t getting his gossip mixed up_) was about to have a baby of her own; there was _no way_ she’d just been sitting around the house wondering about his well-being. _Someone_ must have prompted her to check in with him, and he didn’t need three guesses to peg who it was.  
“Did Dennis tell you to check in with me?”  
_“I’m overdue for one either way, Trevor. I said I would and I dropped the ball, I’m not about to deny it. After what happened on the fourth, and the way you’ve been behaving the last couple of days, someone had to check in. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?”_

Trev scowled down at the sidewalk and shouldered past a small mob of cadets lingering at the bustling crosswalk, too caught up jabbering to not notice the light was green, and kept the legacy-model cell phone crammed to his ear (_if only to stave off the irrational thought this wasn’t a voice in his head making him feel like the crazy human he wasn’t_). As tempting as it was to throw up a stop-sign of his own, his answer came out more like a yield.  
“Without giving you the full story, ma’am, I am- much as I can be, anyway. You want to know anything more than that, I’d rather… talk face to face. If it isn’t too much trouble.”  
It hadn’t been at the time they’d met, but then again, that had been immediately following the Elysian Outbreak— a reset virus spread through touch between deviant androids, distributed by Cyberlife’s rogue AI, Amanda, that ravaged Zion and nearly destroyed Illuminate’s leadership just days after Boston had been reclaimed. She hadn’t exactly gone out of her way to check in on him after their return from Boston. When she did get around to it, it was only because they had already been making their rounds checking in on survivors. It just so happened he’d been a curiosity on display when she passed by his holding cell. Still, Vivienne did him the courtesy no one else yet had of simply asking about his well being, and offered her emotional support when he admitted to her how confused and terrified he was of everything and _everyone_. Trev took her beat of hesitance now as an attempt to withdraw from a passing interest in his affairs, something he anticipated from everyone but quietly hoped he’d be wrong about.  
“But, you know,” he added in the uncomfortable silence, “Trouble _does_ tend to stalk me on a regular basis, no matter how many times I try and throw her off.”  
_“Heh. I see your flair for exaggeration hasn’t changed. It’s no bother, Trevor, just name a time and place. We can plan around your schedule if not mine.”_  
Had he known that reverse psychology would have no effect on Viv, he probably wouldn't have even tried. Instead, she’d thrown the ball right back in his court, and left him standing there feeling like a jackass. Trev’s lip curled in dismay. He _ really _ didn’t want to deal with this right now.  
“I’ll… call you back when I’ve figured it out. I’m a bit... _preoccupied _these days. Bye.”

The flip phone clamped shut with a sharp _clap_ upon closing, and he huffed in aggravation at his decision to, once _again_, lie to get out of an uncomfortable situation. Dishonesty might not have been the most flattering trait for a policeman to possess, but there wasn’t any harm in telling half-truths as long as the _whole_ truth came out when the time was right.  
And it wasn’t _really_ a lie, he _was_preoccupied. Between studying, waiting, and thinking, Trev had a lot on his plate, and on his mind. Specifically, he couldn’t get Dylan’s words out of his head- about loneliness, and about letting people help; but what nagged at him most wasn’t advice or words of wisdom, it was how he’d related to the pain in his eyes and his unapproachable behavior. It was how he’d gently persisted in spite of all the warning signs and immediately forgave him when he snapped a little harder than appropriate.  
Fleur was right to equate his words to planting seeds. It was funny how only a few hours in each other's presence had already managed to root themselves so deep into his thoughts. Whether those seeds would sprout flowers or weeds was up for discussion, though. It couldn’t be both. Weeds tended to spread their roots faster, soak up all the water, and choke flowers out; and right now, he could hardly tell the difference. Explaining that to Cassie, Dennis, or Vivienne would only end in them telling him to stop worrying so much. Even though they meant well, they just couldn’t understand the stress that fostered.

He went to bed the second night without the quarter, only to lay there a few futile hours and listen to his thoughts thundering like contenders on a horse track as he fought back the impulse to swap clothes again. There was _no way_ he was going to allow _him_ to have this much influence over his state of mind. The more he relied on his memory, the more entwined he’d become, and the harder he would be to extirpate, and Trevor just couldn’t afford another hole to fill.  
But his will was weaker than his anxiety, and desperate exhaustion won out in the end. The motion of tugging the shirt down over his head hit like soft hands on his shoulders, and the just-barely-too-small fabric swathed him like the security blanket it was. Trev didn’t even bother to crawl under the covers as he got back into bed; instead, he just curled up against the headboard, pressed his face into the pillow, and listened to his anxious breathing as it smoothed itself out the longer he stayed still and didn’t reach out to catch any of his circling thoughts. As much as he wanted to continue to fret, he knew that rest was more important.

The third day saw a welcome reprieve when Dennis intercepted him at the end of his day just outside his apartment. Even though he was still on duty, he’d made a detour to return the missing token to its distraught owner, in the hope that he’d take a breath and stop acting like such a jerk toward every poor soul he came across. Trev wasn’t surprised to see Lenore leaned against the car’s hood, cooling his heels, when he spotted the ZPD cruiser idling on the corner, until he pulled a familiar trinket from his pocket.  
Trevor lunged for the coin and nearly dropped everything in his arms in the process to retrieve it, but Dennis held firm to it to look his understudy square in the eye and make sure he really heard what he had to say. “Happens again, finding it is on you, understand?”  
The unspoken half of his comment didn’t need saying, his blue eyes screamed loud and clear.  
_And stop taking your anger out on the rest of us. There’s no need for your hissy fits._  
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Langley dropped his gaze, feeling properly admonished. Launching into any long winded explanation to justify his bad behavior wouldn’t end well, so he didn’t bother. There was no follow up affirmation, no nod or a pat on the arm. When he looked up Dennis’ stern gaze was still locked on him, but after a few more moments of silence, he wordlessly turned and walked around to the other side of the vehicle while reaching for the radio clipped to his chest.  
Trevor didn’t linger to listen to his conversation with dispatch. He pushed the door to the lobby open, rushed up the stairs to the second floor, darted into his apartment and slammed the door behind him. The cool metal of the quarter pressed tightly into the palm of his hand had already started to melt away the stress, the same way the false skin of his hand had deactivated on contact at the intense pressure. Two days ago this would have caused a breakdown, but now that he had Spencer’s quarter back, he could forgive the unease the sight caused him.  
Trev put his book bag on the bed to sit at his desk and study the Philadelphia-minted coin under lamplight. He didn’t detect any lingering soap residue or see new buffs on the finish. The mixed composition of copper and nickel was, as best he could tell, unaltered and the tarnish no more advanced than the last time he had seen it. It didn’t excuse how callously he had been reacting to everyone since he’d misplaced it. Even if most hadn’t bothered to take notice of his not-quite-tantrums, those who did were due an apology, as soon as he could manage.  
Before he could repay new debts though, there was one he needed to take care of first. It was already pretty late in the day on a Sunday, and he still had to wash them before he returned them. Luckily, he had accumulated enough dirty laundry of his own to mix Dylan’s in with, so he wouldn’t get any weird looks for washing one set of clothing. There was a small laundromat on the ground floor of the building, he could stop by and run a load before class…  
Which left him one more night with them as they were. Had it been two nights prior, he may have fought the urge to sleep in them again with more conviction, but after his experience the previous night, he opted for an easy sleep without even thinking twice about it.

**July 8th, 2041 - 4:06 PM**

Mondays were the bane of any work week, with or without the looming eventuality of seeing the man he’d just spent the last three days trying to forget. It was the beginning, the end of the sacred weekend, the return to the daily grind. It didn’t matter what type of work, any kind of routine nine-to-five occupation boasting full time hours with a baseline of eight hour shifts per day, the sentiment was universal. From corporations to retailers to home-grown grocers running their small time food carts on the sides of a Downtown street, everyone adhered to the hate-Monday mentality like a suburban ritual, one that extended to students returning to school after a couple of days without classes.  
For Trev, a long weekend of grousing at people who had nothing to do with causing him real distress had just left him feeling sheepish. It wasn’t that he _liked_ being a grumpy misanthrope. His prior persona had been earnest and wide-eyed, only concerned with doing the right thing, but circumstances since had only served to channel him down this path of isolation, something he did and didn’t want. Dylan had shown him that, and continued to needle that want for the next three days, even if he hadn’t been around to do so in person. All of this back and forth, yes and no, hot and cold was starting to get _exhausting_, more so than usual. Trev had to get his things back where they belonged, then maybe he’d stop thinking about it so much. And he didn’t need his _charity_ any more than he needed anyone telling him they knew what was best for him.

After a tepid round of classes, sparring, and some rudimentary range time, Trev collected the now-clean pants and shirt from his apartment and loitered in the doorway of the building, just out of sight of any curious eyes, as he flagged down the first taxi he found. One hand he kept in his pocket to thumb the quarter intermittently to dull the looming anxiety, a drawstring plastic bag with the borrowed clothing clutched in the other.  
The ride back to Fair Haven didn’t seem nearly as long and grueling without Dennis in the car to ask questions. He paid little attention to the buildings outside, how they turned smaller and more domestic the further out of the city it went. Community parks turned to patchy stretches of forest, and the less congested the traffic became, the more relaxed he felt. And with the token back in his possession to fight with, he couldn’t work himself into such a frenetic state of mind even if he _tried_.  
The automated vehicle took the long route around the property before finding itself barred at the gate. It was an unmanned checkpoint, overseen by a single camera and a microphone built into a small post. It looked more like a terminal to put in an order at a fast foot joint.  
“_Uh_... Tre- Trevor Langley, here to see Mr… Dylan Fleur?”  
The beady red LED above the speaker winked green after half a minute, almost as if the security guards listening from their remote office hadn’t expected anyone to be visiting the delinquent son. To tell the truth, he’d half expected to be denied at the gate, but it sounded like Dylan had left his name on the guest list in the hope that he’d return. So he hadn’t been lying about the open invite, after all.

The gate rolled open and the cab pulled through into the estate's two thousand acre property, fenced in on all sides, and followed the winding path up the cobblestone driveway lined with flowering magnolia trees. Trevor paid his surroundings no mind until he noticed a shabby-looking pickup truck parked off to one side about half a mile from the estate’s centralized mansion, facing the treeline. Two men stood outside leaning against the doors with a set of binoculars in hand, but turned away as the car approached. Cleary, they didn’t want to be recognized.  
Trev frowned. One glance at their ragged attire, scraggly hair, and unwashed faces, and he could tell they had no business being there. Unless they were groundskeepers, the guard should have known better than to let them in. So how had they managed? And what were they doing way out here, lingering like a couple of vultures?  
Curiosity got the better of whatever caution he felt. He waved a hand over the dashboard to apply the brake, and the car rolled to a stop as he leaned halfway out the window. “Hey! You boys lost or something?”  
It was highly unlikely.

Both men jumped up at the sound of his unfamiliar voice, and scrambled into the truck while throwing panicked looks over their shoulders. They clearly hadn’t been expecting to be found, much less called out, which only made his case for him. Trevor heard a bad engine cough four times before it turned over and sputtered black exhaust from under the frame as the tires spun to life in a panic. Rather than take the main exit, they sped for a gap in the trees and disappeared behind the layers of undergrowth, the torn up grass and unsightly skid marks left over the only evidence they had ever been there.  
Trev frowned and blinked the short term memory away as he sat down to roll the window back up. Who they were wasn’t yet important, but what they might have been doing on the property at all was troubling. He didn’t need hypersensitive android ability to see they had been up to no good.


End file.
